If you’ve been listening to statements coming out of the Kremlin, you’ve probably noticed that Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, repeatedly talk about something called the “Minsk Protocols” or the “Minsk agreements.” And you might also know that those agreements have to do with the status of two allegedly pro-Russian regions of the Donbass, a coal-mining region of Ukraine that borders Russia and that Russia has occupied since 2014. You might even be aware that some experts in the West consider those two regions something of a bargaining chip — perhaps, such experts think, letting Russia annex or control those two regions might be part of a compromise that could mollify Putin and prevent a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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