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What the Paris summit left behind by 12 December 2019
Summary
A look back at the Normandy Format talks in Paris and the ceasefire pledge that followed them.
What did the Paris peace talks leave on the table by 12 December 2019? Three days earlier, on 9 December, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel had met in the French capital for talks on ending the war in Donbass.
The meeting carried several firsts. It was the first time Putin and Zelensky had met, and the first four-way leaders' meeting of its kind since 2016.
A ceasefire pledge
Following what was reported as a breakthrough in the talks, Russia and Ukraine agreed to implement a ceasefire in the Donbass by the end of 2019. That left roughly three weeks between the summit and the stated deadline.
The format behind the talks
The Normandy Format brought together Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France. The group first met informally in 2014, during the 70th anniversary commemorations of D-Day in Normandy, and it played a substantial part in mediating the Minsk agreements between 2014 and 2015.
The group went on to meet until 2022. Later meetings that year failed to reduce rising tensions before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As of 12 December 2019, the Paris summit had put the format's leaders back in one room and produced a public commitment on a ceasefire. Whether the pledge would hold by the end of the year was the open question.
