[6] This agreement consisted of a package of measures, including a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government.

[9] Following that decision, on 22 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse.

Russia then processed to establish the narrative and negotiation position in order to trap the victims of Russian aggression and involve Western states in the logic of “frozen conflict” (Umland & Essen).

[23] OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter confirmed that the elections ran "counter to the letter and spirit of the Minsk Protocol", and said that they would "further complicate its implementation".

[25] Following the Russian victory at Donetsk International Airport in defiance of the Protocol, DPR spokesman Eduard Basurin said that "the Minsk Memorandum will not be considered in the form it was adopted".

Following this victory, russian military[2] together[citation needed] with separatist forces pressed their offensive on the important railway and road junction of Debaltseve in late January.

[31][32] The plan was put forth in response to American proposals to send armaments to the Ukrainian government, something that Chancellor Merkel said would only result in a worsening of the crisis.

[31][33] A summit to discuss the implementation of the Franco-German diplomatic plan was scheduled for 11 February at the Independence Palace in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

[6][36][37][38] Some of the measures agreed to were an OSCE-observed unconditional ceasefire from 15 February, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, and constitutional reform in Ukraine.

During the briefing, they said that President Putin had tried to delay the implementation of a ceasefire by ten days, so as to force Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve to surrender their positions.

[45] Kommersant reporter Andrey Kolesnikov wrote that implementation of the ceasefire in Debaltseve hinged upon whether or not Ukrainian forces were truly encircled, "Above all, does it exist or not?

[51] Though the fighting generally subsided after the ceasefire came into effect at 0:00 EET on 15 February, skirmishes and shelling continued in several parts of the conflict zone.

Having visited cities held by separatist and Ukrainian forces, he reported that both sides placed heavy weapons and munitions in civilian areas.

[60][62] Ukrainian defence minister Stepan Poltorak said on 8 June 2015 that over 100 soldiers and at least 50 civilians had been killed since Minsk II came into effect.

[64] Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that the law was a "sharp departure from the Minsk agreements" because it demanded local elections under Ukrainian jurisdiction.

Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko said that the law was "a vote for de facto recognition of the Russian occupation in Donbas".

Vice-parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy said that law was "not for Putin or the occupiers", but to show Europe that Ukraine was willing to adhere to Minsk II.

Later, in 2019, Ukraine's parliament voted to extend regulations giving limited self-rule to separatist-controlled eastern regions, a prerequisite for a deal to settle the five-year conflict there.

[69] On the same day, President Petro Poroshenko responded that if DPR elections went forward in this unilateral manner, it would be "extremely irresponsible and will have devastating consequences for the process of deescalation of tension in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions".

[41] Amidst a great reduction in violence, following an agreement to restart the implementation of Minsk II that was agreed to on 1 September, the Normandy four held a meeting on 2 October.

[78] Deputy head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine Alexander Hug said on 25 March 2016 that the OSCE had observed "armed people with Russian insignia" fighting in Donbas from the beginning of the conflict, that they had talked to prisoners who said they were Russian soldiers, and that they had seen "tire tracks, not the vehicles themselves, but the tracks of vehicles crossing the [Russo-Ukrainian] border".

[80] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe however said that the Minsk Protocol also includes the liberation of those hostages who have been abducted from the Ukrainian territory and are illegally detained in Russia, e.g. Nadiya Savchenko and Oleg Sentsov.

[11] On 24 August 2022, after a meeting of the Crimea Platform, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that current front lines in the war would not be frozen.

[106] A few days before the 2022 Russian invasion, French president Emmanuel Macron and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken opined that the Minsk agreements were "the way forward" to end the conflict in Donbas.

[109] In May and June 2021, Mark Galeotti proposed "it is time to recognize that the Minsk process has run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue",[110] and suggested that as an external party, the United Kingdom might move diplomacy forward.

[112] In October 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "if the Americans are genuinely prepared to support the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, this issue can be settled very quickly.

[122] In November 2021, the Russian foreign ministry breached diplomatic protocol by releasing confidential correspondence with negotiators Germany and France.

[123][124] In January 2022, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said that "The fulfillment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s destruction.

When they were signed under the Russian gun barrel — and the German and the French watched — it was already clear for all rational people that it’s impossible to implement those documents.

[127] In an interview to Semen Pegov in 2024 former head of DPR Alexander Borodai explained that, in military terms, the Russian intervention in Ukraine should have started already in 2014 but Russia was not ready for that in economic, military and propaganda sense, which is why Russia entered the Minsk Agreements with no intention of complying, but it gave it time to prepare the full-scale invasion.