In 2022, Russia and Ukraine had tried to build a peace negotiation, an attempt that is failed and was never revived. The documents chronicling these efforts to reach an agreement were published by New York Times, who reconstructed what happened. The cards describe the negotiating sessions that took place in the weeks following the start of the war, exactly from February to April 2022. That, as far as we know, would be the only time the Ukrainians and Russians engaged directly in peace talks, addressing many crucial issues in detail.
The points of the negotiation
According to what was analyzed by New York Times, the negotiators already analyzed the terms of one Ukraine’s potential membership of the European Union and the fate of some Ukrainian laws on language and culture that Russia wanted to repeal. The Kiev negotiators had also offered to renounce membership of NATO and of accept Russian occupation of parts of their territory but yes they refused to recognize Russian sovereignty over them.
Negotiations will begin in February 2022
The February 28, 2022 is the date on which the negotiation began: some assistants of the Polish president brought by helicopter senior Ukrainian officials on the border with Belarus where they have then met a Russian delegation led by Vladimir Medinsky, an advisor to Putin. From the documents it emerges how the Russians had no idea of the real number of soldiers killed on the field. Moscow counted 800, while Kiev said it had registered at least 3,000.
Ukraine was permanently neutral
According to New York Timeson that occasion, Ukraine had said «ready to become a permanently neutral state that would never join NATO»: the Ukrainians asked for international security guarantees And they wanted that the treaty applied to “internationally recognized borders”the Russians, however, wanted Ukraine and all other signatories cancel the sanctions against Moscow imposed since 2014. Furthermore, Kiev would have had to cede the entire eastern region of Donbass And recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
The draft also provided limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forcesa point that according to the US newspaper would have alarmed the Americans.
The Istanbul statement
Subsequent negotiations produced the Istanbul Communiqué, never published. In this document it was established that the status of Crimea it would be decided in a span of 10 or 15 years, with Ukraine promising to do not attempt to reconquer the peninsula by force. Furthermore, according to the Timesthe document stated a mechanism whereby other states would intervene to help Ukraine in the event of a new invasion.
The issue of Ukrainian defense and the cession of territories
Already then, Russia demanded the withdrawal of troops from some territories occupied by Moscow (Crimea and another area to be defined), thus determining a cession of its territory. Moscow had then entered a controversial article to be applied in the event of a new armed attack on Ukraine. The “Guarantor States”, signatories of the treaty (Great Britain, China, Russia, United States and France) would have intervened in his defense. Paradoxically, among these Russia had also been includedwhich should have approved the response. Practically, Moscow could have invaded Ukraine again and then vetoed any military intervention, a condition clearly inadmissible for Kiev.
Doubts about Putin’s role and the need to reorganize
During the period of negotiations, Putin would have managed both diplomacy and military advance, but doubts remain whether the negotiations were just a diversion to allow Russian troops to regroup. Doubts relaunched in Switzerland by Zelensky himself: «The ultimatums that Putin imposed then – he said on the sidelines of the Buergenstock peace summit – are not very different from the proposals of two days ago. Putin has no proposals but only ultimatumswhich give him the opportunity to take a break. The Minsk agreements were a pause to prepare for the invasion. Moscow needs breaks, also because it has lost its well-trained army and therefore needs time to reorganize.”
