Minsk agreements gave Ukraine time to strengthen army and destroyed Putin's plans in 2022 - François Hollande

He said this in an interview with The Kyiv Independent.

“The Minsk Agreements stopped the Russian offensive for a while,” Hollande said when asked if he believed the Minsk talks were intended to delay Russian advance in Ukraine.

Hollande agreed with the words of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit said about the Minsk Protocols: “It was obvious that they were going to freeze the conflict, that the problem was not solved, but it only gave Ukraine precious time.”

Hollande added: the merit of the Minsk Agreements is that the Ukrainian army was able to strengthen. Therefore, he partly explained the resilience of Ukraine in 2022 by his diplomatic efforts in 2014-2015.

“Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. Indeed, the Ukrainian army was completely different from that of 2014. It was better trained and equipped. It is the merit of the Minsk agreements to have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity,” he noted. 

Analyzing the events after 2014, Hollande noted that the geopolitical situation was not favorable for Ukraine.

“We have already seen the American withdrawal from the international scene in Syria… Trump's presidency has loosened the ties between the Europeans and the United States within an Atlantic alliance he considered obsolete. Finally, the rout in Afghanistan was seen by Putin as a new sign of weakness in the Western camp. As for Europe, it failed to see how its dependence on Russian gas made it vulnerable. So Putin thought that time had worked in his favor and that he could cross the threshold by further invading Ukraine. Hence the aggression he committed,” Hollande noted. 

At the same time, what Putin considered an asset for himself, according to the former French president, actually turned out to be an opportunity for Ukrainians. So Ukrainian resistance in 2022 turned out to be much stronger than the Kremlin leader expected. An important role was also played by the fact that in 2022 Europe was not divided and immediately supported Ukraine, as well as the USA provided significant assistance to Kyiv.

Speaking about the current French President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to continue the dialogue with Russia, François Hollande noted that in order for the dialogue to be fruitful, “it must be based on the balance of power.”

“Dialogue for the sake of dialogue has no meaning and can even have negative consequences by suggesting that responsibilities are shared and by offering a convenient communication framework for Putin. Therefore, dialogue (now) can only serve to translate a military situation into a political framework. There will only be a way out of the conflict when, on the ground, Russia will have noted the failure of its murderous enterprise,” he said.