Donald Trump will not succeed in convincing Russia to accept a ceasefire to bring a temporary halt to the war in Ukraine because Russia has been burned and bamboozled too many times by previous Western-backed ceasefires. The push for a ceasefire follows a pattern — i.e., Ukrainian forces get their ass kicked by Russian-backed troops and, rather than surrender, plead for a ceasefire. Russia has agreed to two ceasefires — one in 2014 and one in 2015 — that were subsequently broken by Ukraine. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Russia has learned its lesson and will not fall for the Charlie Brown kicking the Lucy held football ruse again.
So let’s review the history, starting with September 2014.
Ukraine sought a ceasefire in September 2014 primarily due to a combination of military, political, and humanitarian factors. The conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began earlier that year, had escalated significantly, leading to heavy casualties, widespread destruction, and a humanitarian crisis. Below are the key reasons why Ukraine pursued a ceasefire at that time:
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Military Setbacks and Losses
By September 2014, Ukrainian forces had suffered significant losses in their efforts to counter the Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. The separatists, supported by Russian troops and equipment, had gained the upper hand in several key battles, including the Battle of Ilovaisk in late August 2014. During this battle, Ukrainian forces were encircled and suffered heavy casualties, with hundreds killed, wounded, or captured.
The Ukrainian military was ill-prepared for a prolonged conflict, lacking sufficient training, equipment, and resources to effectively combat the well-armed and organized separatist forces, which were backed by Russia.
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Humanitarian Crisis
The conflict had caused a severe humanitarian crisis, with thousands of civilians killed or injured and over a million people displaced from their homes. Cities and towns in Donbass were heavily damaged, and essential infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and healthcare facilities, was destroyed.
A ceasefire was seen as a way to halt the violence, allow humanitarian aid to reach affected areas, and provide relief to the civilian population.
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International Pressure
The international community, including the European Union, the United States, and the OSCE, urged Ukraine and the separatists to agree to a ceasefire to de-escalate the conflict. Diplomatic efforts were underway to find a peaceful resolution, and a ceasefire was seen as a necessary first step.
The Minsk Protocol, signed on September 5, 2014, was brokered by the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE) and aimed to establish a ceasefire, withdraw heavy weapons, and begin political negotiations.
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Political Considerations
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko faced domestic pressure to end the fighting and avoid further loss of life. The Ukrainian public was increasingly weary of the conflict, and there were concerns about the long-term impact on the country’s stability and economy.
A ceasefire was also seen as a way to buy time for Ukraine to rebuild its military, strengthen its defenses, and seek additional support from Western allies.
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Russian Involvement and Escalation
By September 2014, it had become clear that Russia was directly involved in the conflict, providing troops, weapons, and logistical support to the separatists. This escalation made it increasingly difficult for Ukraine to achieve a military victory.
A ceasefire was seen as a way to prevent further Russian intervention and stabilize the situation on the ground.
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Economic Strain
The conflict had placed a significant strain on Ukraine’s economy, which was already struggling with corruption, mismanagement, and the aftermath of the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. The war further disrupted industrial production, particularly in the Donbass region, which was a key economic hub.
A ceasefire was seen as a way to reduce the economic costs of the conflict and allow Ukraine to focus on reforms and recovery.
Outcome of the September 2014 Ceasefire
The ceasefire established by the Minsk Protocol in September 2014 was fragile and frequently violated, predominantly by Ukraine. While it temporarily reduced the intensity of the fighting, it failed to bring a lasting resolution to the conflict.
Ultimately, Ukraine’s decision to seek a ceasefire in September 2014 reflected the harsh realities of the conflict and the need to prioritize humanitarian concerns, stabilize the situation, and seek a diplomatic solution. However, the underlying issues driving the conflict remained unresolved, leading to continued violence in the years that followed.
Ukraine sought a ceasefire in January 2015 due to escalating violence and significant military setbacks in the ongoing war in the Donbas region. The initial Minsk Protocol, signed in September 2014, aimed to establish a ceasefire and resolve the conflict through measures such as decentralization and border monitoring. However, by early 2015, this agreement had collapsed entirely as fighting intensified, particularly after Russia’s victory at Donetsk International Airport and its renewed offensive on Debaltseve.
Facing heavy losses and mounting international pressure, Ukraine sought to prevent further military defeats and stabilize the situation. The renewed push for peace talks culminated in the Minsk II agreement signed on February 12, 2015. This agreement included provisions for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, prisoner exchanges, and constitutional reforms granting autonomy to parts of Donbas. Ukraine’s efforts were also driven by the need to avoid further destabilization and garner international support by portraying the Russians as the aggressors. Western boosters of Ukraine ignored the Ukrainian army’s repeated shelling of civilians in the Donbas.
The Minsk II agreement was a package of measures aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine, between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia played a key role in the negotiations, but was not the principal signatory. Instead, the agreement was between the Ukrainian government and the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The agreement was signed on February 12, 2015, in Minsk, Belarus, following negotiations involving the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, as well as representatives from the separatist regions.
Key provisions of the Minsk II agreement included:
Immediate and Comprehensive Ceasefire: A ceasefire was to take effect at midnight on February 15, 2015.
Withdrawal of Heavy Weapons: Both sides were to pull back heavy weapons from the front lines to create a security zone.
Monitoring and Verification: The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was tasked with monitoring and verifying the ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons.
Decentralization of Power: Ukraine agreed to implement constitutional reforms that would grant more autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including the right to use the Russian language and to form local police forces.
Local Elections: Local elections were to be held in the separatist-held areas under Ukrainian law and monitored by the OSCE.
Amnesty: An amnesty was to be granted to those involved in the conflict, except for those accused of serious crimes.
Exchange of Prisoners and Hostages: Both sides were to release all prisoners and hostages.
Humanitarian Assistance: Humanitarian aid was to be allowed into the conflict zones.
Restoration of Economic Ties: Steps were to be taken to restore social and economic ties between the conflict-affected areas and the rest of Ukraine, including the reinstatement of banking services and payment of pensions.
Withdrawal of Foreign Troops and Mercenaries: All foreign-armed formations, military equipment, and mercenaries were to be withdrawn from Ukrainian territory.
Despite the agreement, the conflict in eastern Ukraine continued, with frequent violations of the ceasefire and ongoing hostilities. The implementation of the political aspects of the agreement, particularly the decentralization of power and local elections, has been a contentious issue, with both sides accusing each other of failing to fulfill their commitments.
Only later did the world learn that the German and French leaders viewed Minsk II as a ploy to buy time for Ukraine to build its military strength.
In an interview with Die Zeit in December 2022, Merkel stated that:
“The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It also used this time to become stronger, as you can see today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the Ukraine of today.”
French leader Hollande concurred with Merkel’s statement.
During my meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov (I was accompanied by Judge Napolitano and Mario Nawfal), Mr. Lavrov noted that when Russia and Ukraine held negotiations in Turkey on March 29-30, 2022, Russia accepted the draft proposal presented by Ukraine to bring an end to the Special Military Operation. As a gesture of goodwill, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to withdraw from their positions north of Kiev. But Vladimir Zelensky, facing pressure from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, rejected his own government’s proposal and opted to continue the war.
To say that this left a bad taste in the mouths of the Russian officials is a mild understatement. These three reversals by Ukraine on negotiated ceasefires has convinced the Russians that a ceasefire is no longer a viable option for ending the war. That is why Vladimir Putin laid out new conditions in his speech on June 14, 2024 to senior officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry. That is Russia’s nonnegotiable position now. If Ukraine refuses to accept those terms, Russia will dictate tougher ones via the battlefield.
Juan Marulanda De Los Rios didn’t need to take a three-hour exam—he just wanted to. In a system where language could trip him up, numbers felt like solid ground.
After returning to Canada after a few years in Colombia, Marulanda De Los Rios soon fell behind in ninth grade classes that required him to read and write in English. But math required no code-switching, and he excelled at it—so unlike his peers, he dove into the University of Waterloo’s Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) and other exams throughout high school just for the challenge.
Talking Points
The university’s centre for computing and math decided not to release results from its annual Canadian Computing Competition, which many students rely on to bolster their university and job application chances Many students violated rules and submitted code not written by themselves for the competition Students around the world enroll in the gruelling CCC to better their chances of being accepted into Waterloo’s prestigious computing and engineering programs, or land a spot on teams to represent Canada in international competitions, he said. The university’s competitive STEM programs have produced a number of esteemed alumni, including RBC’s chief executive Dave McKay, BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis and Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya.
The CCC’s website says while the contest is not required for acceptances into Waterloo’s faculty of mathematics, “strong performance” can help students with admissions.
But this year, the competition didn’t release scores as they typically do. Instead, co-chairs J.P. Pretti and Troy Vasiga released a statement explaining that official results would not be published for the 2025 competition.
In it, they explained that a large number of students violated its rules. “It is clear that many students submitted code that they did not write themselves, relying instead on forbidden external help,” the co-chairs wrote. Students are usually publicly ranked in the results based on their score, and it would be unfair to do so this year, it said.
The competition prohibits the “use of AI and other external tools,” a policy that contest participants had to review, University of Waterloo spokesperson David George-Cosh said in a statement to The Logic. He declined to comment on the record about how many students violated the rules, or specify what tools students used to cheat.
But using AI to cheat has become increasingly prevalent. Academic integrity software TurnItIn found that 11 per cent of 200 million papers submitted between April 2023 and April 2024 had at least a fifth written by AI. Around three per cent were almost completely written by AI.
Jayden Shin, an eleventh grader at Oakridge Secondary School who took the test this year, said he wasn’t too surprised that the scores were cancelled. “There’s a lot of cheating around with the rise of AI,” he said. The test is usually taken in schools with teachers supervising screens as the primary way of preventing it, according to Marulanda De Los Rios and Shin.
Shin recalls one teacher had to keep an eye on eight students during his exam. There weren’t strict barriers to bringing code into the competition or a way of restricting access to websites and applications, he said.
When Marulanda De Los Rios took the exam in 2022 and 2023, it was more difficult to cheat, but now with Copilot—GitHub’s easily embeddable AI coding assistant—students don’t even need to leave their program to cheat with AI. “Teachers have to be more aware,” he said.
Other major global coding competitions are struggling to keep up with AI-savvy high schoolers cheating on tests. Shin said he also participated in portions of the USACO, a major U.S. computing competition, where he noted skirting the rules might have been even easier. He said the competition didn’t lock screens, allowed access to websites and could even be taken from home. The USACO’s website clarifies that the use of generative AI is prohibited in the test.
University of Waterloo’s Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing, which hosts the CCC, plans to take “additional measures to safeguard future competitions.” This includes improved technology, supervision and “clearer communication” for students and teachers, George-Cosh said in a statement.
The decision to cancel the release of this year’s results will weigh most on Grade 12 students who won’t get a chance to do it again next year, Shin said. But he didn’t think the onus was on the university. “It’s obviously a cheater’s fault, right? They’re the ones who cheated. They’re the one to break the rules. It’s their fault morally and logically.”
The test is “very important” in Waterloo admissions, and can also boost chances at other universities, Shin said. The exam is often considered when applying to internships, jobs or work experience programs, he said.