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What the Zakharchenko funeral meant for peace talks
Summary
A retrospective on the funeral of Alexander Zakharchenko and Moscow's warning about the Normandy format.
What did the death of Alexander Zakharchenko mean for the stalled peace process in Donbass? On 4 September 2018, that question was still open, two days after tens of thousands of people attended his funeral on 2 September 2018.
The day before the funeral, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the killing as a provocation. He also said it would derail the Normandy format peace process, which had already stalled.
What the Normandy format was
The Normandy format brought together Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France. The four countries first met informally in 2014, during the 70th anniversary of D-Day celebrations in Normandy, France. The group later played a substantial role in mediating the Minsk agreements between 2014 and 2015.
Why the warning mattered
By September 2018 the format had little momentum. Lavrov's statement tied a single killing directly to the prospects of the only forum in which all four governments sat together on the war in Donbass. His wording framed the murder as an obstacle to negotiation rather than only a local event.
The large turnout at the funeral underlined the scale of the public moment around the death. Together, the funeral and Lavrov's comments set the tone for how Moscow presented the incident: as a provocation threatening diplomacy.
Later, the group's meetings in 2022 failed to de-escalate rising tensions before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
