Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has warned not to expect “miracles” when she meets Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in Berlin for talks on two powder-kegs: the fragile Ukraine ceasefire and Moscow support for Syria’s bombing of Aleppo.
Ahead of Wednesday’s talks, Moscow announced a break in bombing until Thursday in Aleppo to prepare refugee corridors, a ceasefire dismissed as too short by the United Nations.
With the West accusing Moscow of war crimes for supporting Syria, stakes are high ahead of Mr Putin’s first visit to Germany in two years, and since Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea and the civil war between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces in eastern regions.
A year after signing a second Minsk Agreement, Kiev and Moscow accuse the other of breaching the its terms, in particular promises to observe demilitarised zones.
The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 lay down terms for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front and elections in separatist areas, but Dr Merkel conceded on Tuesday that the Minsk deal was “stuck in all quarters”.
“We are not as far as we wanted to be . . . whether it is ceasefire, political or humanitarian questions,” said Dr Merkel, “and we certainly cannot expect miracles from tomorrow’s meeting”.
Wednesday’s talks are the first in a year of the “Normandy” format, named after their first peace talks on the French coast in 2014, and which include French and Ukrainian leaders.
A week after Mr Putin cancelled a trip to France, many see as a positive sign that the Russian leader and French president, François Hollande, will participate in the Berlin gathering.
Dr Merkel said such meetings were “worth every effort”; her officials said she had made a precondition of talks a readiness on all sides to make a new effort to meet the terms of Minsk.
Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko said he was “not optimistic” about the talks in Berlin, “but I would be very happy to be surprised”.
A spokesman for Mr Putin said it made sense to “compare notes” on the implementation of Minsk, but dismissed talk of concrete agreement.
Despite the Ukraine focus, Dr Merkel conceded that the disastrous situation in Syria would not be excluded from Berlin talks.
She warned Moscow that its ongoing support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad meant “all options” remained on the table, including further EU sanctions. Similar remarks by Mr Hollande last week saw Mr Putin cancel a planned French trip.
Dr Merkel said the priority for Syrian talks would focus on how “the situation has become more disastrous and that clearly because of Russian and Syrian attacks”.
Despite aligning her language on Syria with the US and UK, senior German officials – led by foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier – have insisted that open-ended dialogue with the Kremlin must continue.
His UK counterpart, foreign secretary Boris Johnson, said Russia’s “ruthless and brutal behaviour in Ukraine and Syria made clear the need to keep up pressure of sanctions “but also the threat of justice in the International Criminal Court”.
