The Ghost of Minsk: How a Failed Peace Process Still Shapes Debates on Peace in Ukraine

For eight years (2014–2022), the Minsk Peace Process (MPP) was the main diplomatic framework for attempts to end the war in eastern Ukraine and reintegrate Russia-controlled parts of the Donbas into Ukraine. Yet repeated ceasefires failed to hold, security and political provisions lacked clear sequencing, and, despite its extensive support for the ‘separatist forces’, Russia managed to position itself as a mediator rather than a party to the conflict. Such ambiguities and conflicting interpretations repeatedly stalled the implementation of the package comprising the Minsk I (September 2014) and Minsk II agreements (February 2015), while Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked the definitive failure of the process.

One might therefore have expected Minsk to disappear from debates about peace. Yet its ‘ghost’ has remained present, particularly as a negotiated settlement to the war began to feature more prominently in discussions. My recent article examines how, between 2022 and mid-2025, officials and experts in Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, as well as the OSCE, continued to invoke Minsk when discussing how the war might end. The strikingly different lessons they draw from the MPP show how failed peace processes can acquire a political afterlife, continuing to inform debates over future negotiations long after the process itself has ended.

Ukraine: ‘There will be no Minsk III’

In Ukraine, officials and experts largely converge in their interpretation of the Minsk experience. ‘Minsk III’ has become shorthand not simply for another failed agreement, but for a settlement that Russia could use to secure a pause, rebuild its military capacity and resume the war later. As Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the President’s Office, put it in 2022: ‘We can’t agree on Minsk III because it’s a ticket to a postponed war.’

Ukrainian discourse repeatedly returns to the structural problems of Minsk – ranging from ambiguous language and the lack of clear obligations for Russia to the absence of credible enforcement mechanisms and security guarantees – as lessons for what any future agreement should avoid. Minsk has also served as a negative reference point for rejecting peace proposals seen as unfavourable to Ukraine and, especially earlier in the war, for presenting an alternative vision of a just and sustainable peace. Its flaws were repeatedly contrasted with the Peace Formula Zelenskyi put forward in September 2022 with its emphasis on sovereignty, international law and security guarantees. Although the Peace Formula has since almost disappeared from Ukrainian rhetoric, references to ‘Minsk III’ continue to surface whenever the terms of a possible settlement are discussed.

Russia: From Minsk to Istanbul

Russian officials also portray Minsk as a story of deception but with the roles reversed. In the Kremlin’s interpretation, Ukraine and its Western partners never genuinely intended to implement the agreements but used them to buy time and strengthen Ukraine militarily. Putin has repeatedly invoked this interpretation to justify the full-scale invasion, arguing that Russia was ‘deceived’ over Minsk. Pro-government experts largely share the Kremlin’s narrative of deception but often draw a more hawkish lesson from Minsk. They portray it as a strategic mistake that gave Ukraine time to become stronger and more closely integrated with the West. In their view, Minsk has completely ruled out the possibility of another negotiated compromise: Only Russia’s victory and Ukraine’s reintegration into what they regard as Russia’s sphere of influence can provide a lasting resolution.

Minsk plays a role in another Russian narrative. When, in early 2022, Russia failed to make the quick gains in Ukraine it had apparently anticipated, talks resumed. They culminated in the Istanbul negotiations in spring 2022, which ultimately produced no agreement. Revelations about the atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha in April 2022 further transformed the political context and the window for diplomacy closed. When the prospect of negotiations was raised again from 2024 onwards, Minsk acquired another use in the Kremlin’s rhetoric: Increasingly linked to Istanbul, it became part of a narrative in which Russia had consistently sought a diplomatic solution, while Ukraine, encouraged by the West, had supposedly not pursued opportunities for peace.

Europe: What did the mediators learn?

Germany and France were central to the MPP, forming together with Ukraine and Russia the Normandy Format, the diplomatic framework in which the implementation of the Minsk agreements was discussed. The OSCE, a signatory to both Minsk I and Minsk II, played a key role on the ground through its Special Monitoring Mission, which monitored the security situation and ceasefire violations.

Official German, French and OSCE accounts largely defend their engagement in the MPP as a genuine effort to contain the conflict, while attributing its ultimate failure primarily to Russia. Experts in Germany and France are more self-critical, including of their own governments. They question the reliance on dialogue with Moscow, the acceptance of Russia’s ambiguous role in the process, and the pressure placed on Ukraine to make concessions. The lesson they draw is forward-looking: Another peace process should not leave Ukraine negotiating from a position of weakness, but should be backed by credible security guarantees and stronger mechanisms to ensure implementation.

The MPP is formally over, but its political afterlife continues in both individual and institutional memory. As of September 2026, renewed attempts to revive negotiations make the competing interpretations of Minsk particularly relevant. Any new peace process will not start from a blank slate: The actors involved have very different understandings of why the previous one failed, making the already difficult task of rebuilding trust even harder. More broadly, the case shows that failed peace processes do not simply disappear: Their contested legacies remain part of the political landscape in which future negotiations unfold.

Maryna Rabinovych  is an assistant professor at the Department of Public Policy and Governance at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine and a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Social Sciences at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT). She is also an alumna of the Ukraine Research Network@ZOiS, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.