DISINFO: Normandy summit results: the EU plays on Russia's side and betrayed Kyiv, no bright future for Ukraine
SUMMARY
Ukraine has put itself in a situation when external forces dictate how it should solve its internal problems. Kyiv expected that its Western allies will put pressure on Russia in the Normandy Four format. However, the allies realised that their confrontation with Russia will cost them more. Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel supported Russia’s position and put even bigger pressure on Ukraine than Vladimir Putin did. Eventually Zelenskyy found himself in solitude, because Russia, Germany, and France had nearly identical positions regarding the resolution of the civil conflict in Ukraine. Ukrainian politicians wrongfully remain confident that the West will always unconditionally support any Russophobic regime and that Ukraine can just carry out its foreign policy and security under the West’s authority to enjoy its protection. Ukraine could slam the door and declare that it no longer needs the Normandy format. However, it is the last remaining material evidence of Ukraine’s unity with the West and of its “movement” towards Europe, which Kyiv can present to the Ukrainian people. If the truth is told to the Ukrainians that Europe, represented by Paris and Berlin, is already playing along with Russia, then Ukrainian people will reasonably question, for what were people sacrificed and state and society destroyed, if in the end, Europe betrayed Ukraine, Ukraine will never be in the EU, and a “bright future” will never come.
RESPONSE
This article misrepresents the actual German and French positions in the Normandy summit and masks the clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity by acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces since February 2014 as Ukraine's "internal problems" and "civil conflict". It also challenges Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty and promotes recurring pro-Kremlin propagandistic narrative about Ukraine's inevitable bleak future, its disintegration and imminent collapse. The claim that Germany and France play along with Russia is groundless. According to the Common Agreed Conclusions of the Normandy summit of 9 December 2019, "The Minsk agreements (Minsk Protocol of 5 September 2014, Minsk Memorandum of 19 September 2014 and the Minsk Package of Measures of 12 February 2015) continue to be the basis of the work of the Normandy format whose member states are committed to their full implementation." The Minsk Package of Measures of 12 February 2015, among other things, without mentioning Russian personnel and hardware by name, calls for the "withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under monitoring of the OSCE" (para 10). Read our articles about anti-Ukrainian propaganda Ukraine Under Information Fire and Five Years of Falsehoods: Was it Worth the While for the Kremlin? as well as earlier disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine invariably faces civil war and complete disintegration, that Ukraine will be disintegrated by 2023, that the Normandy summit aimed at solving Ukraine’s internal problems, and that Germany fabricated a new “Skripal case” ahead of Normandy summit.