The “Mediation in Regionalized Conflicts: Lessons from Recent Peace Processes” project focuses on international mediation in intra-state conflicts that have significant regional conflict dynamics. These dynamics tend to make the conflicts more protracted and less amenable to resolution through mediation. The project is based on case studies. The Minsk process, led by France and Germany, began in mid-2014 in response to Russian military aggression against Ukraine. In early 2015, it achieved a temporary stalemate but did not resolve the crisis. It ended in abject breakdown when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This paper evaluates the gap between the strategies of the belligerent parties (Russia and Ukraine) and those of the two key mediators (France and Germany), which doomed the Minsk process to failure.
The project is led by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. It is supported by the Cross-border Conflict, Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research program, funded by UK International Development.