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Kyiv's week of arrests and Paris talks
Summary
A look back at 13 December 2019, days after the Normandy Format summit and a day after arrests in the Sheremet murder case.
What did Kyiv's security picture look like on 13 December 2019? It was shaped by two developments from the days just before: a diplomatic meeting in Paris and a high-profile arrest in a murder case.
Paris, 9 December
On 9 December 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel met in Paris for talks on ending the war in Donbass. As reported at the time, it was the first meeting between Putin and Zelensky, and the first four-way leaders' meeting of this kind since 2016.
The talks produced a breakthrough. Russia and Ukraine agreed to implement a ceasefire in the Donbass by the end of 2019.
The format itself was known as the Normandy Format, or Normandy Four, after the group of Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France first met informally in 2014 during the 70th anniversary of the D-Day celebrations in Normandy. It later had a substantial role in mediating the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015. Meetings in 2022 failed to deescalate tensions before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Arrests in the Sheremet case, 12 December
The other development came on 12 December 2019. The main suspects in the murder of the journalist Pavlo Sheremet were arrested. They were three Ukrainian military personnel: Yana Duhar, Yulia Kuzmenko and Andriy Antonenko.
A day between two stories
By 13 December 2019, then, the ceasefire commitment made in Paris had less than three weeks left to run before the end-of-year deadline. The arrests in the Sheremet case had been made the day before.
