In April 2022, Russia effectively derailed peace talks with Ukraine by insisting on a veto power over any international response in the event of a renewed assault on Ukraine.
This demand was included in the draft agreement, which ultimately led to the collapse of the talks, according to The New York Times, which cited sources and draft agreements from the negotiations.
The New York Times recently published the full drafts of the peace agreements dated 17 March and 15 April 2022. These documents outlined the competing proposals and points of agreement between the two sides and included a summary of the proposed deal from the Istanbul talks held on 29 March.
The drafts were provided by Ukrainian, Russian, and European sources and were verified as authentic by participants in the negotiations and other individuals close to the talks. While some aspects of these documents had been previously disclosed, most of the material had not been publicly revealed until now.
The Times also conducted several months of interviews with over a dozen current and former officials from Ukraine, Russia, and the West, along with other individuals close to the negotiations, including three members of the Ukrainian negotiating team.
Points of Conflict
The documents reveal that the parties clashed over several issues, including the level of armaments, conditions for potential Ukrainian membership in the European Union, and Ukrainian language and cultural laws, which Russia sought to overturn.
The Ukrainian negotiating team agreed to forgo NATO membership and tolerate Russian occupation of part of its territory but refused to recognise Russian sovereignty over these areas.
Additionally, Russia demanded that Ukraine make Russian an official language.
“Russia, stunned by Ukraine’s fierce resistance, seemed open to such a deal but ultimately rejected its most crucial component: an arrangement obligating other countries to defend Ukraine if it were attacked again,” The New York Times reported.
The Times reviewed the English-language version of the 17 March draft agreement, which Ukraine had shared with Western governments.
At that time, Ukraine sought Russia’s agreement to international “security guarantees,” under which other countries, including Ukraine’s allies, who would also sign the agreement, would defend Ukraine if it were attacked again.
The agreement was intended to cover “internationally recognised borders of Ukraine,” even as Russian troops still sought to capture Kyiv.
Ukraine wanted its allies to be obligated under the agreement to intervene if attacked again, potentially by “…closing the airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed forces to restore and maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.”
Russian Demands
The Russian negotiating team wanted Ukraine and all other signatories to the agreement to lift sanctions imposed on Moscow since 2014 and publicly call on other countries to do the same.
Ukraine was to surrender the entire eastern Donbas and recognise Crimea as part of Russia.
The seven-point list was aimed at eroding Ukraine’s national identity, including a ban on naming streets after Ukrainian independence fighters.
The draft also included limitations on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces and the number of tanks, artillery batteries, warships, and combat aircraft the country could maintain in its arsenal.
International Concerns
US officials expressed concerns about the potential terms of the agreement. In meetings with Ukrainian counterparts, a senior official reportedly remarked, “We quietly told them: ‘You do realise this is unilateral disarmament, right?'”
A European diplomat noted that Polish leaders feared Germany or France might try to convince Ukrainians to accept Russia’s terms and sought to prevent this.
Thus, at a meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels on 24 March, Polish President Andrzej Duda raised the text of the 17 March draft agreement. “Who among you will sign it?” Duda asked his colleagues. None of the NATO leaders responded.
On 29 March, Russian and Ukrainian representatives met in an Istanbul palace on the Bosphorus. At that time, the Russians appeared to endorse the Ukrainian model of neutrality and security guarantees and placed less emphasis on their territorial demands, according to the article.
Istanbul Communique
Ukraine summarised the proposed agreement in a two-page document called the Istanbul Communique, which it never published.
The status of Crimea was to be determined within 10-15 years, with Ukraine promising not to attempt to reclaim the peninsula by force.
Zelensky and Putin were to meet personally to finalise the peace agreement and decide on the portion of Ukrainian territory that Russia would continue to occupy.
The communique, provided to The Times by a Ukrainian negotiator, described a mechanism for other countries’ military intervention in the event of another attack on Ukraine – a concept the Ukrainians called Article 5, referring to the mutual defence agreement in NATO’s Article 5.
In the Ukrainian view, binding security guarantees were the foundation of a potential peace agreement that could be signed by many countries: “Potential guarantor countries: Great Britain, China, Russia, the USA, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel.”
“The guarantor states and Ukraine agree that in the event of aggression, any armed attack on Ukraine, or any military operation against Ukraine, each of the guarantor states, after urgent and immediate consultations among them … will provide … assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack …,” the communique stated.
Critical Issue
However, Russian officials publicly sent mixed signals about whether the Kremlin was genuinely ready to sign the agreement.
According to the negotiators, Russians and Ukrainians returned to hours-long negotiations via video call, exchanging draft agreements through WhatsApp.
On 10 April, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, David Arakhamia, sent a WhatsApp message to the Ukrainian team stating that he had spoken with Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who played a behind-the-scenes role in the talks.
According to Arakhamia, Abramovich “had spoken with his boss,” meaning Vladimir Putin, who urged the negotiators to focus on the key issues and work quickly. A member of the WhatsApp group showed this and other messages to The Times journalists.
One Ukrainian negotiator believed the talks were a bluff by Putin, but two others considered them serious.
On 15 April, the Russian negotiators submitted a 17-page draft agreement to their president.
As with the previous version, the 15 April draft contained text highlighted in red, emphasising contentious issues. But such markings were nearly absent from the first pages of the agreement, indicating areas of consensus.
Thus, in the 15 April version, the negotiators agreed that Ukraine would declare itself a permanently neutral state, although it would be allowed to join the European Union.
Significant portions of the agreement “would not apply” to Crimea and other Ukrainian territories to be defined later – meaning Kyiv would tolerate Russian occupation of part of its territory without recognising Russian sovereignty over it.
Major Sticking Points
Russia wanted to limit the range of Ukrainian missiles to 25 miles (40 km), while Ukraine sought 174 miles (280 km) – enough to target sites throughout Crimea.
Russia still wanted Ukraine to repeal laws related to language and national identity and withdraw Ukrainian troops under a ceasefire.
In Russia’s ceasefire proposal, Ukraine was to move its troops on its own territory “to permanent locations or to locations agreed upon with the Russian Federation.”
However, the biggest problem arose with Article 5. It stipulated that in the event of another armed attack on Ukraine, the “guarantor states” signing the agreement – the UK, China, Russia, the USA, and France – would defend Ukraine.
Critical Issue
“To the great dismay of the Ukrainians, there was a significant deviation from what Ukrainian negotiators said was discussed in Istanbul. Russia added a clause stating that all guarantor states, including Russia, must approve the response in the event of an attack on Ukraine. Essentially, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf – an absurd condition that Kyiv quickly deemed a deal-breaker…”
Following this change, one member of the Ukrainian negotiating team said, “We were not interested in continuing the negotiations.”
The publication also reports that President Volodymyr Zelensky recently assured a European colleague that Ukraine would continue the fight, according to a European diplomat present at the meeting.
“If we don’t make progress this year, we will try again next year. And if we don’t make progress next year, we will try again the year after, and the year after that,” The Times quotes Zelensky as saying.
Image: NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA IN MARCH 2022, PHOTO FROM SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM X BY MYKHAILO PODOLIAK
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