On Tuesday, Ukraine announced a key agreement with eastern separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk. Under the deal, there will be troop withdrawals from two locations, and snap local elections for the eastern areas.



The local election is meant to be the beginning of a normalization of the region, ending years of strife. This is not the first time local elections were proposed as a way to resolve the situation, and it may still face the same problem as before.



Former President Poroshenko reneged on the promise of local elections, claiming they were conditional on a full disarmament and surrender to the government beforehand. The separatists rejected this, suspecting that after they were taken over, the elections would be canceled anyhow.



Zelensky seems to be demanding less, allowing all candidates to run and the OSCE to certify the vote. He is, however, conditioning the vote on control over the Ukraine-Russian border.

Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz