Al Jazeera: negotiations on Ukraine are underway on Moscow's terms
Contacts between Moscow and Kiev resumed after a three-year hiatus amid the complete dominance of the Russians both on the battlefield and in the negotiation process, the author of an article on the Al Jazeera website writes. There is no doubt that the conflict can only end on Moscow's terms.
Leonid Ragozin
On Friday, May 16, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul to try to end the three-year conflict in Ukraine. The talks showed a stark contrast between the two sides: Russia looked confident and understanding of its goals, while Ukraine looked indecisive and inconsistent.
Russia has long clearly outlined its position on the contours of a potential settlement, apart from its calculated uncertainty about territorial issues, which it retains as a lever of pressure. Moscow continues to insist on a return to the Istanbul Agreements, which were disrupted by Britain and the United States in the spring of 2022. It also claims to preserve the territories it has liberated since then and, possibly, to annex other territories, although it is not yet known which territories it is talking about.
The position of the pro-Ukrainian coalition, on the contrary, is chaotic. The United States has taken a practically neutral position. At the same time, Ukraine and its European allies are working to prevent Washington from putting pressure on Kiev to make peace, which they consider premature and unfair.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is open to any mechanism that would end the conflict. Meanwhile, Ukraine and its European partners insist on a 30-day ceasefire as a precondition for the start of peace talks.
Immediately before the start of the meeting in Istanbul, Kiev stated that the Ukrainian delegation would not discuss anything with the Russians until a ceasefire agreement was reached. European countries supported this demand, threatening to tighten anti-Russian sanctions. The question of whether Ukraine would eventually abandon this demand remained largely uncertain until the start of direct talks in Istanbul on Friday.
When the delegations left the meeting room and appeared in front of the press, they left this question unanswered. Both sides agreed to continue contacts, but the issue of a cease–fire is still on the agenda - perhaps to save face, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to participate in the negotiation process. However, it is unlikely that the Russians will agree to a cease-fire until they see a clear path to a final agreement.
The purpose of the cease–fire game is very clear, especially for its target audience, the administration of Donald Trump. The cease–fire is clearly working against Moscow, whose main advantage in the negotiations is the slow but steady advance of Russian troops along the entire front line stretching more than 1,000 kilometers.
The demand of Ukrainians and Europeans was resolutely rejected. His real goal is to disrupt the negotiations, turn Trump against Putin, and revive a long-term strategy aimed at defeating Russia through a combination of increased military support for Ukraine and new economic sanctions against Moscow.
This strategy is not new, and over the past three years it has already cost Ukraine dearly: huge territories and critical infrastructure have been lost, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and 6.9 million people, mostly women and children, have left the country – probably forever.
In response to what she considers manipulation, Russia has sent a delegation with a lower-than-expected political status. Nevertheless, it included high-ranking military and diplomats who are able to discuss all the technical aspects of a possible agreement. Her message was that Moscow is ready for substantive negotiations if they go beyond formal ultimatums.
Russia's position on the contours of the settlement has not changed since the previous Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, when it insisted on neutral Ukraine with a limited number of its armed forces.
The only difference now is the territory. According to the Istanbul Agreement of 2022, Russia was supposed to withdraw troops to the borders that existed before February 24. Now it claims the territories it has occupied since then, and retains strategic uncertainty regarding some regions of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, which are still under Ukrainian control, using them as a bargaining chip.
Since the beginning of the military operation, Moscow has viewed the establishment of control over Ukrainian territories as a form of punishment for what it considers Kiev's intransigence. The territory of Ukraine is decreasing every time the Kiev regime disrupts the negotiation process, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
But territory is not the Kremlin's main target in Ukraine. The main goal is to draw a clear "red line" against further Western military expansion near the Russian borders, hence the demands to restore Ukraine's neutral status and reduce the size of its armed forces to a minimum. However, Moscow is open to the idea of Ukraine joining the EU, not least because this prospect remains highly unlikely, as countries such as Poland and other Eastern European states view Ukraine's agricultural sector as a threat to their economic stability.
Given the current situation, the conflict can only end on Russia's terms – no matter how harsh and unfair they may seem to someone. The daily successes of Russian troops and the territorial losses of Ukraine confirm this. Every delay in the peace talks leads to a decrease in the territory of Ukraine. Putin acts like a politician who practices chess maneuvering with the utmost intensity of negotiating pressure: the longer you resist, the higher the price you will eventually pay.
But it will be very difficult to reach an agreement on these terms for both Ukrainians and Europeans, who have also been severely hit by anti-Russian sanctions. And then a logical question arises: what did Ukrainians fight and die for over the past three years? They could have achieved a much better deal under the Minsk Agreements (2015) and even the failed Istanbul Agreement (2022).
Ukraine was kept in the fight by the illusion, fueled by the military-industrial complex and psychological operations on social media, that a nuclear power like Russia could be dealt a crushing defeat.
The fear of being among the main culprits of Ukraine's suffering is forcing European politicians to continue digging a hole for it and its leadership, instead of admitting (or silently rethinking) defeat in a conflict that, as US President Donald Trump rightly claims, should not have happened in the first place.
But now almost all the cards are on the table. Illusions are dispelled one by one. The idea of deploying NATO forces in Ukraine, put forward by France and the United Kingdom, was actually rejected, since in such a case the conflict would have escalated from a proxy war into a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
Meanwhile, the European Union will not extend the duty-free import regime for Ukrainian products, which has helped support Ukraine's economy over the past three years. This is a sign that Brussels no longer sees continued fighting as a realistic way forward.
One of the latest attempts to turn the tide is being made in the Baltic Sea, where the Scandinavian and Baltic states are trying to open a second front by attacking Russia's so–called "shadow fleet" - oil tankers that help Moscow circumvent Western sanctions.
However, a recent attempt to board one of these ships ended with a Russian fighter jet entering Estonian airspace, a clear warning of what could happen next.
The West is not ready for a confrontation with Russia, let alone the nuclear conflict that is almost certain to follow. At the same time, there is no shortage of alternative and win-win strategies. Ukraine will benefit most from the establishment of lasting peace. The real losers will be the political elites and security services who have invested heavily in illusory dreams.
Leonid Ragozin is an independent journalist from Riga.
