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What followed the Paris summit and Sheremet arrests?
Summary
A look back at the days around 13 December 2019, when Ukraine's security agenda combined a new ceasefire pledge with arrests in a high-profile killing.
What was the mood in Kyiv on 13 December 2019, days after the Paris peace talks and a day after arrests in a notorious murder case? Two separate security stories were running side by side.
Paris talks and a ceasefire pledge
On 9 December 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel met in Paris for talks on ending the war in Donbass. It was the first meeting between Putin and Zelensky, and the first four-way leaders' meeting in the Normandy Format since 2016.
Following a breakthrough in the talks, Russia and Ukraine agreed to implement a ceasefire in the Donbass by the end of 2019. The Normandy Format, made up of Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France, had first met informally in 2014 and later played a substantial role in mediating the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015.
Arrests in the Sheremet case
On 12 December 2019, the main suspects in the killing of journalist Pavel Sheremet were arrested. They were named as Ukrainian military personnel: Yana Duhar, Yulia Kuzmenko and Andriy Antonenko. The case had drawn wide public attention.
The picture on 13 December
By 13 December 2019, then, the ceasefire commitment made in Paris was still a promise to be delivered by the year's end, while the arrests in the Sheremet case marked a new stage in a long-running investigation. Later, the Normandy Format meetings held in 2022 failed to de-escalate rising tensions before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
