At the turn of the third year of the war, the possibility of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine seems to be getting further and further away. Yet, some documents published by New York Times bring to light the work carried out by the negotiating teams between February and April 2022. This is the last time that the two counterparts seriously engaged in a attempt at negotiationanalyzing very deep details of a hypothetical peace agreement.
The draft treaty
There draft of that treatynow made public, listed a series of key points that could satisfy both sides, ensuring, at the same time, the security of Ukraine, but satisfying some of the wishes of Vladimir Putin. A treaty that seems very far from the positions that have now become gangrenous on the battlefield, and very different from the inadmissible requests made by Moscow in recent days which, essentially, ask for a Ukrainian capitulation. On the other hand, Putin is far from wanting to give in on annexations, much less on Crimea, “conquered” by force in 2014.
The fact is that the Swiss conference, currently underway, could once again lead to a hypothesis of a treaty, albeit in the absence of Russia and China. However, it could be a good omen for a return to negotiation which could, sooner or later, force them Sherpa Russians and Ukrainians to put down on paper the conditions for a truce, at least. There Crimea, certainly, would be one of the fundamental points of the treaty. In April 2022 it was mutually decided that the peninsula would remain under Russian sovereignty, but without diplomatic recognition by Kiev. A specific clause, in fact, provided that all parts of the “contract” did not extend either to Crimea or to Sevastopol.
The fundamental points
But the text also dealt with the future of military alliances and cultural aspects, considered fundamental by Moscow. Ukraine was initially expected to agree to do not join NATO or to other alliances, did not grant bases or deploy foreign contingents. And again, going on an identity and cultural level, Russia asked to make the Russian an official language in Ukraine, starting thirty days from the application of the treaty.
At that stage, Russia was stunned by the fierce and unexpected resistance that Ukraine was putting up and, therefore, seemed open to an agreement of this type. The dialogue has become more complicated regarding a very critical component, namely a possible agreement that would oblige other countries to come to Kiev’s defense if it were ever attacked again. The judgment on this first phase of negotiations is not at all unanimous: Moscow continues to maintain that the West exerted strong pressure on Ukraine to reject a peace agreement. However, it is questionable why Russia wanted peace already in April 2022, when 3 months earlier it had attacked Ukraine. What is the meaning? The drafts published by the US newspaper are the full version of the documents obtained, which are dated March 17 and April 15, 2022. They indicate the competing proposals and the points of agreement of the two parties, as well as a private statement occurred during in-person talks in Istanbul on March 29. To confirm the truthfulness and quality of the documentsthe fact that they were provided by Ukrainian, Russian and European sources and confirmed as authentic.
Permanent neutral state
But how did all this happen? The February 28, 2022 Aides to the Polish president had met a group of senior Ukrainian officials at the border and ferried them by helicopter to a military base near Belarus. The Ukrainians then entered Belarus on their own, meeting a delegation of Russians led by a Putin advisor. That was a very particular and grotesque moment at the same time in the history of war: the beginning of direct talks between invaders and the invaded. Ukrainian negotiators have spoken several times with the editorial team in recent months Times, arguing that they initially felt strongly that Putin came to the negotiating table so quickly because he didn’t expect his army to stumble so theatrically. Some time later the negotiations moved to video calls between bunkers.
Ukraine had initially done so a significant concessionbecoming ready to transform into one Permanently neutral state. A tempting opportunity for Putin who continues to support the West to use Kiev to destroy the Federation. The draft treaty arrived on March 17 and shows how distant the parties had remained. Ukraine wanted its allies to be bound by the treaty to be able to intervene if they were attacked again, for example by closing airspace, providing necessary weapons, or using the military to restore and maintain Ukraine’s security. On Moscow’s side, the Russian team wanted Ukraine and all other signatories to cancel the sanctions imposed on Putin in 2014.
Because the negotiations stalled
On top of this, of course, Ukraine would have to cede all of its eastern Donbass region and recognize Crimea as part of Russia. A list of 7 points however, it aimed at Ukraine’s national identity, including a ban on naming places after independence fighters. An inadmissible point for those who demolished the existential independence of Kiev, but above all it showed the reasons why Putin had entered the war: the belief that Ukraine is a Artificial country and that it should be considered an integral part of Russia
In addition to a series of demands aimed at banning references to Nazism and neo-Nazism, the draft included limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces but also to the number of tanks, artillery batteries, warships and fighters that Kiev could have in its arsenal.
The desperate Ukrainians, as the risk of Kiev’s capitulation became clear, had been willing to accept these limits, but Moscow gradually tried to raise the bar. How is this called? DisarmamentYes but unilateral. That’s why the negotiations stalled. And that’s why three years have passed.
