March 31, 2022
Volodymyr Zelensky defeated Petro Poroshenko in the 2019
election on a platform that included making peace with Russia and signing the
Minsk Agreements. The Minsk Agreements would have granted a degree of autonomy
to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the Donbas that had voted for
independence from Ukraine after the 2014 US backed coup put a government in
power that was handpicked by the US and that was pro-West and anti-Russian. It
was intense pressure from the far right wing ultranationalists that bent
Zelensky from a Minsk backer into the shape of a Minsk rejecter. Under that
pressure from neo-Nazi parties that have large power that is disproportionate
to their small support, Zelensky abandoned his campaign peace promise and
refused to talk to the leaders of the Donbas and implement the Minsk
Agreements.
