Elections in the DNR postponed to 2016
By Colonel Cassad
October 6: Elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DNR and LC) will be postponed to 2016 as part of the “Normandy Quartet” plan for implementation of the Minsk agreement. So, as mentioned earlier, the terms of the Minsk agreement will not be met in 2015 and the issue of the border is no longer relevant in 2015 (according to Minsk, it should be considered after the elections in Donbass).
On the other hand, the Russian Federation had to pay a price by putting the brakes on implementing the “Transnistria scenario,” since if the elections had gone ahead now, they would have buried the Minsk agreement in 2015 and finally torn the Donbass from Ukraine. However, plans for certification and various changes in the republics are very likely to be postponed pending the elections (although creeping changes are not excluded). Now the republics will remain in limbo for several months, and will remain, as before, at the mercy of Russian negotiations with the United States and the European Union.
Judging by the terms, the benchmarks are those of the OSCE compromise plan authored by Morel, where Russia makes concessions on the timing of elections, but the junta and its masters have to accept that the deadline for the Minsk Agreement will not come in 2015. The republics demand that the junta make the desired changes to the Constitution of Ukraine, while the junta says no changes are required and, moreover, already demands the cancellation of the 2014 election results. This is actually the main problem of agreements with the junta; it systematically fails to comply with its obligations.
In general, the situation in Donbass will remain at a crawl for the rest of 2015, and the clarity desired by many will not occur until next year.
Translated by Greg Butterfield
Note by Greg Butterfield
Cassad’s brief commentary hones in on the main issue with the Donbass elections from the Russian government’s viewpoint: “The terms of the Minsk agreement will not be met in 2015 and the issue of the border is no longer relevant in 2015 (according to Minsk, it should be considered after the elections in Donbass).”
For the Russian capitalist class, with its military forces currently engaged in Syria, this makes perfect sense (while rubbing everyone’s faces in the fact that the Donbass resistance is viewed as a pawn rather than an ally).
At the same time, it shows why this rotten comporomise with the imperialists and Kiev junta at the expense of the DNR and LC is not an apocalyptic conclusion, either. A lot depends on how the imperialists respond to Russia’s intervention against ISIL and various CIA assests in Syria.
Undoubtedly there are strategists in both Moscow and Donbass hoping that a Russian triumph over ISIL will provide them more wiggle room on the world scene for dealing with Kiev.
We must not lose sight of the fact that the real hope for the future doesn’t rest on Moscow or Kiev or negotiations in Minsk. It rests with initiatives like the Ghost Brigade’s newly announced INTERUNIT.
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