The road to peace in Ukraine is extremely difficult and perhaps also very long, despite president Trump’s initial hopes. Even agreeing an initial ceasefire in Ukraine is a tall order, as this Tuesday’s Trump-Putin phone call attests. Nonetheless, negotiations will continue, particularly as all sides – Ukraine, Russia and the US – appear committed to achieving a full peace agreement rather than merely a Korean-style ceasefire.
Yet a full peace treaty is much more considerable undertaking, and these negotiations remain overshadowed by the failure of the Minsk II Agreement – a 2015 diplomatic effort that promised peace but ultimately collapsed. The lessons of Minsk II offer sobering insights into the obstacles facing any new settlement and the structural flaws that must be avoided if a sustainable resolution is to be achieved.
The Minsk process emerged in response to the crisis triggered by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its subsequent military support for separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The initial Minsk Agreement (formally, the Minsk Protocol), signed in September 2014, sought to establish a ceasefire and withdraw heavy weaponry but quickly unravelled under the weight of continued hostilities and ambiguous commitments. Minsk II, agreed in February 2015 by Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, went further, outlining a detailed “implementation” roadmap that included an immediate ceasefire, constitutional reforms granting autonomy to Donbas, local elections, and the restoration of Ukrainian control over its borders. Yet despite a full UN Security Council endorsement – legally on par with the UNSC resolutions that ended the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, or the Iran-Iraq War – the agreement proved untenable. Fighting persisted, neither side fulfilled its obligations, and disagreement over the sequence of implementation became a source of perpetual deadlock. The failure of Minsk II underscores critical lessons that are directly relevant to the present negotiations.
A primary flaw of Minsk II was its lack of clarity in both the terms of the agreement and the sequencing of obligations. The vague language permitted each side to interpret commitments in according to its interests. This perpetuated the impasse over whether political concessions (e.g. elections in the separatist areas in the Donbas) or security measures (restoration of Ukrainian government border control) should take precedence.
Ukraine insisted that security must come first – demanding an effective ceasefire and Russian troop withdrawals before considering political reforms, including amending the country’s constitution to provide for Donbas autonomy. Russia, in turn, conditioned de-escalation on Kyiv’s implementation of these constitutional amendments and the holding of elections in separatist-controlled regions. This contradiction was never solved and meant that neither side was prepared to act to move the process forward, so the conflict festered.
Any new agreement must avoid such ambiguity. It must define territorial arrangements, ceasefire parameters, and political guarantees in unambiguous terms while establishing a clear sequence of steps. Given the complete lack of trust between Ukraine and Russia, precise wording and pre-emptive dispute-resolution mechanisms will be indispensable to prevent stalling or selective interpretation of terms.
The second major deficiency of Minsk II was its complete absence of robust enforcement mechanisms. The agreement lacked teeth. It relied on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor compliance, but its mandate was weak, its personnel were obstructed on the ground, and its findings related to ceasefire violations carried no binding authority.
The United Nations Security Council’s endorsement under Chapter VI provided symbolic legitimacy but lacked any means of coercion or the standing in international law that Chapter VII resolutions have. Chapter VI of the UN Charter focuses on the peaceful settlement of disputes and empowers the UN Security Council to make recommendations rather than impose binding obligations, which are typically reserved for Chapter VII resolutions. Despite their non-binding nature, some Chapter VI resolutions – such as those pertaining to the Israel conflicts, as mentioned – gain significant authority and are treated as influential in shaping international law or practice due to their widespread acceptance, subsequent state behaviour, or their role in establishing norms. None of this applied to Minsk II.
Consequently, after Minsk II was signed ceasefire violations became – or continued to be – routine, and neither side faced tangible repercussions for non-compliance. Any new accord must correct this structural weakness.
Effective enforcement requires tangible consequences – whether through economic penalties, binding security guarantees, or the deployment of a UN-style (or even UN-mandated) international peacekeeping force with a clear mandate under a Chapter VII resolution to ensure compliance. The United States, given its direct involvement in these negotiations, could leverage its economic and military clout to deter violations, with the former being certainly more likely than the latter.
However, we should not forget that Russia’s veto, certainly during the course of negotiations but also, ultimately, at the UN Security Council, complicates the prospect of legally binding international enforcement. A creative alternative might involve involving neutral third parties with credibility in both Moscow and Kyiv, such as Turkey or India, to oversee implementation from a peacekeeping standpoint.
The “assurance” or “deterrence” force being mooted by the UK and France, that would theoretically deploy to Ukraine after the war ends, is highly problematic in the context of these negotiations (let alone from a practical and political-strategic point of view). Moscow is very likely to include specific provisions in the final agreement against this kind of eventuality, which means that any future European deployment to Ukraine could only happen by breaking the peace deal.
A third lesson from Minsk II, but one that is not a concern anymore in the present negotiations is that accountability is a decisive factor in whether a new agreement holds. One of Minsk II’s enduring flaws was its failure to recognise Russia as a direct participant in the conflict. This is clearly not the case now, as the negotiation process itself is framed as taking place between Russia and Ukraine, with US mediation. Even though Putin framed his 2022 invasion as a “special military operation” in support of the two Donbas “republics”, this point has, by now, been voided by their formal annexation by Russia in September 2022.
There is really no comparison to 2015, Moscow framed itself as a neutral mediator despite overwhelming evidence of its military role which was only thinly masked by “little green men”- style tricks. This diplomatic fiction allowed Russia to evade responsibility while continuing to arm and coordinate separatist forces. Meanwhile, Ukraine faced internal political constraints especially from nationalist factions in the Rada (parliament) that limited its ability to implement aspects of Minsk II and make concessions. In their turn, separatist factions operated with impunity. And the Normandy Format, which saw France and Germany act as mediators, lacked the leverage to hold either side accountable.
By contrast, in the present negotiations Russia formally counts as an active belligerent, not a disinterested party, and any settlement will have to reflect this reality. Ukraine, for its part, must be held to commitments that are realistic given the domestic political climate, particularly the expected political resistance to any territorial concessions. The presence of the United States in the negotiations could serve as a counterweight to Russia’s manoeuvring, but, again, Washington must be prepared to enforce compliance – including on Ukraine if necessary – whether through economic leverage or some form of security guarantees.
It is worth emphasising the point about domestic political dynamics within Ukraine as the fourth big lesson from Minsk II that does apply this time as well. Minsk II faltered in part because of fierce resistance within Ukraine to the political provisions of the deal. The proposed constitutional changes granting Donbas “special status” were widely perceived as capitulation to Russian aggression, sparking mass protests and legislative gridlock in Kyiv.
Russia, however, faced no comparable internal pressure to compromise, giving Moscow a strategic advantage. Any future settlement must account for these political realities. Ukrainian leadership cannot afford to impose an agreement that the public overwhelmingly rejects, especially if it involves territorial concessions or autonomy for Russian-occupied areas. However, concessions could be made more politically palatable if framed as part of a broader strategic victory – potentially tied to some form of Western security guarantees or post-war reconstruction assistance.
The main issue in this case would not be the ability of a Ukrainian government to get an eventual peace agreement approved by the Rada, although that would be difficult enough. Rather, the key problem will be to sustain political support within Ukraine for sticking with the peace deal and implementing it once all is agreed. The question of exactly how this is to be achieved, and how to avoid Ukrainian revisionism down the line – particularly if Western military and financial aid continues to pour into the country after the war – is one of the most important but under-discussed challenges of the peace process.
Beyond all this, one of the most fundamental lessons of Minsk II is, unsurprisingly, that security guarantees must precede political concessions. Ukraine resisted implementing the political provisions of Minsk II because its leaders feared – in view of ongoing violations of the 2015 ceasefire – that Russia would use them to cement permanent influence over Donbas without withdrawing military support for separatists.
Any new peace framework for Ukraine will therefore require a phased implementation approach on both sides, with verifiable security benchmarks preceding political steps. These would apply to the process of military disengagement across the contact line and the creation of the demilitarised zone which will be absolutely required as part of a long-term solution. Other benchmarks will likely apply to specific provisions related to the withdrawal (to different distances) of certain long-range weaponry, as well as any wider arms-control components of the eventual peace deal.
Having been invaded in 2022, Ukraine is now unlikely to accept vague political assurances even from allies without ironclad security commitments – if not in some form of NATO integration, which seems off the table, then through defence pacts with European “coalition of the willing” countries (bilaterally or collectively), given that the US is unlikely to join in. A more tenuous option could be some new internationally security mechanism, perhaps co-guaranteed by extra-regional powers like Turkey or even China. Yet Russia will fiercely oppose any deal that accelerates Ukraine’s Western alignment, let alone one that brings Western troops into Ukraine; so this will remain one of the thorniest issues in negotiations.
Finally, the Minsk II experience highlights the perils of assuming good faith where none exists. Without implying a moral equivalence, the fact is that neither Russia nor Ukraine fully adhered to their obligations under the agreement. Moscow continued to arm its proxies, while Kyiv stalled on political reforms. The point is that the framework of Minsk II was predicated on an expected level of cooperation that never materialized.
The present talks must be structured with this reality in mind. Russia will likely continue to probe for weaknesses, testing ceasefire conditions with different types of deniable incursions or strikes, while Ukraine will resist making irreversible concessions, of whatever type, without cast-iron assurances. Any agreement that assumes mutual interest in avoiding a resumption of hostilities (let alone goodwill) is doomed to collapse. Instead, a pragmatic framework must be designed around mechanisms that function even in the absence of trust – such as third-party monitoring, satellite verification of troop movements and maritime activity, or staged withdrawals tied to economic incentives.
The diplomatic landscape of 2025 differs from that of 2015 in one critical respect: the stakes are now vastly higher. Whereas Minsk II sought to contain a frozen conflict within Donbas, the current war has engulfed much of Ukraine, reshaped European security calculations, and disrupted global energy and food markets. Any settlement must grapple not only with immediate ceasefire conditions but also with fundamental questions of territorial sovereignty, alliance structures, and long-term stability.
Minsk II ultimately proved an exercise in diplomatic expediency – a settlement that postponed rather than resolved the underlying conflict. If the present negotiations are to avoid a similar fate, they must be anchored in enforceable commitments, strategic realism, and an acknowledgment of the hard limits imposed by geopolitical rivalry. Without these elements, any agreement risks becoming Minsk III – a well-intentioned diplomatic exercise that merely sets the stage for the next war.
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