Judging from the two documents, President Vladimir Putin's goal is for Ukraine's leaders in Kiev to reject the proposals. Then he will be able to say Ukraine has broken its political terms and renounce his own key concession -- to return control of Ukraine's southeastern border to the central government by the end of the year.
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None of these demands directly breach the letter of the cease-fire agreement.
The only proposal that does is a list of "special district" towns in the draft election law. It includes: Ukrainian-held Shyrokine, near the port city of Mariupol; Piski, adjacent to the hotly contested Donetsk airport; and Debaltseve, the railroad junction the rebels seized after the Minsk deal was signed. The cease-fire explicitly enshrines last September's separation line between the rebels and the Ukrainian military, and would put all three towns on the Ukrainian side.
The separatists have submitted their proposals both to the Ukrainian Constitutional Commission, charged with working out a decentralization plan, and to the Minsk contact group, which is supposed to monitor cease-fire compliance. Ostensibly, the rebels -- and Russia -- want a dialogue with Ukrainian authorities about the documents. They know, however, that it won't take place. "We don't really want to respond to this clear provocation by the separatists," a person at the Constitutional Commission told Theinsider.ua.
Putin undoubtedly wants the commission to reject the proposals. That's why the separatists also submitted them to the international contact group, where French diplomat Pierre Morel oversees the political part of the Minsk deal. It's important for Putin to convince his Western adversaries that Ukraine won't do its part to bring about lasting peace.
That's the reason Putin's propaganda machine seized on Poroshenko's recent statement that Ukraine would "free" the Donetsk airport, part of which is in rebel-held territory, according to the cease-fire terms.
Putin wants Western leaders to get tired of Poroshenko's combative stance. As soon as they show signs of such fatigue, he can freeze the situation and proceed to build ties with the rebel-held areas on the model of other frozen conflict zones: Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
