Zelensky’s rejection of a third Minsk framework rests on the record of the first two, which froze a conflict rather than ending it and gave Moscow a staging ground for the February 24, 2022 invasion.
The Minsk Record
Minsk I was signed in September 2014, after the battle of Ilovaisk. Minsk II followed in February 2015, after the fall of Debaltseve. Both committed Russia and Ukraine to ceasefires that never held. Instead of restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over the 408 kilometers of border with Russia in Donbas, the agreements froze a frontline where Russian proxies controlled roughly one third of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission recorded over 200,000 ceasefire violations between 2017 and 2021. Diplomats still cited Minsk as the only negotiating format. From that frozen conflict Moscow staged the February 24, 2022 invasion, using occupied Donbas as a staging ground. The columns pushed toward Mariupol, toward Kharkiv, and toward Kyiv. So Zelensky’s February 2025 statement treats any new framework accordingly.
The Arithmetic of Avdiivka
By the time Russian infantry finally entered Avdiivka’s ruined southern districts in February 2024, Ukrainian gunners had been rationing shells for months. Defenders fired as few as 2,000 rounds per day across the entire Avdiivka sector. Russian batteries answered with 10,000. That five-to-one deficit translated directly into lost strongpoints. The Tsarska Okhota restaurant fell. So did the industrial zone, the 9th quarter, and the private sector along Soborna Street. Each was abandoned after close defense ran dry.
A Ukrainian brigade commander near the coking plant reported holding fire until Russian assault groups closed within 200 meters. Every 152 mm shell had to count. Zelensky’s demand for artillery volumes, not negotiation tracks, comes from that arithmetic. Holding a fixed line at Avdiivka required ammunition Ukraine did not have, regardless of any ceasefire proposal.
The Czech Shell Initiative
By early 2024, Ukraine’s artillery was burning through roughly 200,000 NATO-standard 155mm rounds per month. Allied deliveries covered only a fraction of that. The shortfall cost ground in Avdiivka and slowed counterbattery fire along the Donetsk front. In February 2024, Czech President Petr Pavel announced that Prague had located 800,000 shells outside the European Union. The sources were South Korea, South Africa, and Turkey. The rounds were available for purchase and delivery within weeks, but only if funding materialized.
The Czech-led coalition grew to include Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and Denmark. By June 2024, it had raised over €1.6 billion. The first tranche of 50,000 to 100,000 rounds reached Ukrainian artillery units in late June. The rest was scheduled to arrive by year’s end. This procurement sidestepped the European Defence Agency’s joint ammunition tendering, which was stalled and had delivered just 480,000 rounds.
The Cost of Paused Supply
When the U.S. Congress finally passed the $61 billion supplemental on April 24, 2024, Ukrainian artillery units along the eastern front had already spent four months rationing shells to five or ten per day. Russian forces used that window. On May 10, roughly 30,000 Russian troops crossed the border north of Kharkiv. They opened a new line of attack toward Lyptsi and Vovchansk, forcing Ukraine to pull brigades away from Donbas.
The delay was not abstract. Ukrainian commanders in the Kharkiv sector reported in late May that for every shell they fired, Russian batteries answered with seven to ten. Air defense interceptors ran low at the same moment Russian glide bomb strikes on Kharkiv city tripled. Those strikes hit residential districts in Saltivka and Shevchenkivskyi on May 14 and May 19. The pattern repeats each time supply pauses. Russia advances where artillery density collapses.
Pauses in weapons, not pauses in fighting, are what shift the front.
F-16s and the System of Warfare
When the first Danish and Dutch F-16s touched down on Ukrainian airfields in mid-2024, they arrived after nearly a year of Ukrainian pilots compressing a three-year Western training syllabus into months. Denmark committed 19 airframes. The Netherlands offered 24. Both countries released them only after Washington approved the transfer of American-made aircraft in August 2023.
These jets carry AGM-88 HARM missiles, JDAM-ER glide bombs, and AIM-120 AMRAAMs. That arsenal lets Ukraine hit Russian Buk, Tor, and S-400 batteries from standoff ranges. MiG-29s and Su-24s cannot reach those distances. F-16s also push Russian logistics hubs in Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea beyond the current 70 kilometer reach of HIMARS. The argument focuses on how the entire system of warfare determines the outcome. The argument is that specific tools matched to specific battlefield tasks matter. Those tasks include air superiority, suppression of enemy air defenses, and deep strikes.
