“We can’t agree on Minsk III because it’s a ticket to a postponed war.” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, said that in 2022. Four years on, the phrase still comes up whenever the terms of a settlement are discussed.
The Minsk Peace Process was the main diplomatic framework for ending the war in eastern Ukraine from 2014 to 2022. It was meant to reintegrate Russia-controlled parts of the Donbas into Ukraine. It rested on two agreements, Minsk I in September 2014 and Minsk II in February 2015. Ceasefires repeatedly failed to hold, and the security and political provisions lacked clear sequencing. Russia, despite its extensive support for the separatist forces, managed to position itself as a mediator and not a party to the conflict. Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 marked the definitive failure of the process.
It might have faded from view. It did not. Maryna Rabinovych, an assistant professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, examined how officials and experts in Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, as well as the OSCE, kept invoking Minsk between 2022 and mid-2025 when they discussed how the war might end. In an analysis for Berlin’s ZOiS, she found that each side takes a very different lesson from it.
Kyiv: a ticket to a postponed war
Ukrainian officials and experts largely agree. For them, “Minsk III” means a settlement that Russia could use to get a pause, rebuild its military and resume the fighting later. They point to the ambiguous language, the lack of clear obligations for Russia, and the absence of credible enforcement and security guarantees as flaws any new deal must avoid.
Minsk has also been a handy reference point for rejecting proposals seen as unfavorable to Ukraine. Kyiv contrasted its flaws with the Peace Formula Zelenskyi put forward in September 2022, which stressed sovereignty, international law and security guarantees. The formula has since almost disappeared from Ukrainian rhetoric. The Minsk warnings have not.
Moscow: the same story, roles reversed
Russian officials also tell a story of deception, but with the roles swapped. In the Kremlin’s account, Ukraine and its Western partners never intended to implement the agreements and used them to buy time and build up Ukraine’s military. Putin has repeatedly said Russia was “deceived” over Minsk, and he has used that to justify the invasion.
Pro-government experts draw a harder conclusion. They call Minsk a strategic mistake that gave Ukraine time to grow stronger and move closer to the West, and they say it rules out any further negotiated compromise. Only Russia’s victory, they argue, can settle the matter.
Minsk also feeds a second Russian narrative. When Russia failed to make the quick gains it apparently expected in early 2022, talks resumed and led to negotiations in Istanbul that spring. No agreement came out of them. Revelations about atrocities by Russian forces in Bucha in April 2022 changed the political context, and the window for diplomacy closed. When negotiations were raised again from 2024, the Kremlin increasingly linked Minsk to Istanbul, presenting Russia as always seeking a diplomatic solution while Ukraine, encouraged by the West, passed up chances for peace.
Berlin, Paris and the OSCE
Germany and France formed the Normandy Format with Ukraine and Russia, where implementation of the agreements was discussed. The OSCE signed both Minsk I and Minsk II, and its Special Monitoring Mission tracked the security situation and ceasefire violations on the ground.
Official German, French and OSCE accounts defend their involvement as a genuine effort to contain the conflict, and blame Russia for the failure. Experts in Germany and France are harder on their own governments. They question the reliance on dialogue with Moscow, the acceptance of Russia’s ambiguous role and the pressure placed on Ukraine to make concessions. Their lesson looks forward: a new process should not leave Ukraine negotiating from weakness, and it needs credible security guarantees and stronger mechanisms for implementation.
As of September 2026, renewed attempts to revive negotiations have made these competing readings of Minsk newly relevant. Rabinovych’s conclusion is that any new peace process will not start from a blank slate.
