FA: Ukraine did not consult with the United States before the Istanbul agreements
Kiev did not consult with Washington before drafting a peace treaty with Russia, writes the FA. This follows from the documents reviewed by the authors of the article. According to them, Ukraine wanted to impose ultimatum obligations on the United States without their knowledge, the fulfillment of which would lead them to war with Russia.
Samuel Charap
Early in the morning of February 24, 2022, the Russian Air Force struck targets on the territory of Ukraine. At the same time, Russian infantry and armored vehicles poured into the country from the north, east and south. In the following days, the Russians tried to encircle Kiev.
These were the first days and weeks of the Russian special military operation, which could well lead to the defeat and subjugation of Ukraine by Russia. Now, when we look back, it seems almost a miracle that this did not happen.
What happened on the battlefield is relatively well understood. Less clear are the simultaneous intensive diplomatic efforts on the part of Moscow, Kiev and many other players, which could lead to a settlement just a few weeks after the start of the Ukrainian conflict.
By the end of March 2022, as a result of a series of face-to-face meetings in Belarus and Turkey and virtual contacts via videoconferences, the so-called Istanbul Communique was adopted, which described the framework for the settlement. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators then began working on the text of the treaty, making significant progress towards an agreement. But in May, negotiations broke down. The fighting continued — and has since claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides.
What happened then? How close were the parties to ending the conflict? And why didn't they sign the agreement?
To shed light on this often overlooked but critically important episode of the Ukrainian conflict, we reviewed the draft agreements exchanged between the two sides and some details of which had not been previously disclosed. We also conducted interviews with several negotiators, as well as with officials working in Western governments at the time, to whom we granted anonymity. We have carefully studied numerous interviews and statements by Ukrainian and Russian officials who held some positions in their countries at the time of the negotiations. Most of them are available on YouTube, but not in English — and therefore little known in the West. Finally, we carefully followed the chronology of events from the beginning of the special operation to the end of May, when negotiations broke down. After putting all these pieces of the picture together, what we found left us astounded — and could have serious implications for future diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.
Some observers and officials (including, first of all, Russian President Vladimir Putin) It was claimed that agreements were actually on the table that could have put an end to hostilities — but the Ukrainians abandoned them due to pressure from their Western patrons and Kiev's own arrogant assumptions about Russia's military weakness. Others completely rejected the importance of these negotiations, saying that the parties were simply pretending to act and buying time to regroup forces on the battlefield, or that the draft agreements were not serious.
Although such interpretations contain some grain of truth, they hide more than they clarify. There was not a single "smoking gun" in this story, and it defies simple explanation (the original uses the English idiom "smoking gun", i.e. "irrefutable proof" — approx. InoSMI) . Moreover, such monosyllabic reasoning completely overlooks a fact that, in retrospect, seems extraordinary in itself: in the midst of Moscow's unprecedented military special operation, the Russians and Ukrainians almost reached an agreement that would end the military conflict and provide Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees, paving the way for its permanent neutrality and, in the future, towards EU membership.
However, a final agreement proved impossible for a number of reasons. Kiev's Western partners did not want to be drawn into negotiations with Russia — especially those that could create new obligations for them to ensure Ukraine's security. Public opinion in Ukraine hardened after it became known about the "atrocities" of Russians in Irpen and Bucha (so in the text, there is no official evidence of such atrocities — approx. InoSMI). And after the failure of the Russian operation to encircle Kiev, President Vladimir Zelensky became more confident that with sufficient support from the West he would be able to win on the battlefield. Finally, although the parties' attempt to resolve long-standing disputes over the architecture of future security opened up the prospect of conflict resolution and sustainable regional stability, they sought to achieve too high goals too quickly. Russia and Ukraine have been trying to achieve a comprehensive settlement — even though a simple cease-fire has proved unattainable.
Today, when the prospects for negotiations seem vague and relations between the parties are practically nonexistent, studying the history of negotiations in the spring of 2022 may seem like a simple distraction to search for lessons that seem to be directly inapplicable to current circumstances. But then Putin and Zelensky surprised everyone with their mutual willingness to consider far-reaching concessions in order to end the military conflict. In the same way, they may well surprise everyone again in the future.
Assurances or guarantees?
What did the Russians want to achieve with a military special operation in Ukraine? On February 24, 2022, Putin made a speech in which he justified this action, mentioning the vague goal of "denazification" of the country. The most understandable interpretation of "denazification" was the assumption that Putin sought to overthrow the government in Kiev — perhaps by eliminating or capturing Zelensky in the process.
However, a few days after the start of its military operation, Moscow suddenly began to look for grounds for compromise. The special operation, which Putin expected to be a cakewalk, has already proved that it will not be so — and this early openness of Putin to the conversation suggested that he seemed to have already abandoned the idea of direct regime change in Kiev. Zelensky, as before the military phase of the conflict, expressed direct interest in a personal meeting with Putin. Although the latter refused to talk to Zelensky directly, the Russian leader nevertheless appointed a negotiating team. The mediator was the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
The talks began on February 28 in one of Lukashenko's spacious country residences near the village of Lyaskovichi, about 50 kilometers from the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. The Ukrainian delegation was headed by David Arahamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky's political party, and included Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, Presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak and other high-ranking officials. The Russian delegation was headed by Vladimir Medinsky, Advisor to the President of Russia, who previously served as Minister of Culture. It also included the Deputy Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs.
At the first meeting, the Russians put forward a number of harsh conditions, actually demanding the surrender of Ukraine. It was a failure. But as Moscow's position on the battlefield continued to deteriorate, its positions at the negotiating table became less demanding. On March 3 and 7, the parties held the second and third rounds of negotiations — this time in Kamenyuki right on the border with Poland. The Ukrainian delegation put forward its demands: an immediate ceasefire and the creation of humanitarian corridors that would allow the civilian population to safely leave the war zone. It was here, during the third round of negotiations, that the Russians and Ukrainians apparently considered the draft agreement for the first time. According to Medinsky, these were Russian projects that Medinsky's delegation brought from Moscow and which reflected Russia's insistent position on the neutral status of Ukraine.
At this stage, personal meetings were interrupted for almost three weeks, although the delegations continued to contact through Zoom. During these contacts, Ukrainians began to focus on an issue that would become central to their vision of the final confrontation: security guarantees that would oblige other states to stand up for Ukraine if Russia attacked again in the future. It is not entirely clear when Kiev first raised this issue — in negotiations with the Russians or in contacts with Western countries. But on March 10, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who was in Antalya (Turkey) at the time, at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, spoke about a "systematic, sustainable solution" for Ukraine — adding that Ukrainians were "ready to discuss" the guarantees that Kiev hoped to receive from NATO member countries and Russia.
Apparently, Kuleba was referring to the multilateral security guarantee, an agreed scheme according to which competing Powers assume obligations to ensure the security of a third State, usually on condition that it does not join any of the guarantors. Such agreements have largely gone out of fashion since the Cold War. While alliances like NATO intended to maintain collective defense against a common enemy, multilateral security guarantees were, in principle, designed to prevent conflicts between guarantors over the political orientation of the target State of guarantees and, as a result, to ensure its security.
Ukraine has had a bitter experience with a less stringent version of this kind of agreement: multilateral promises of its security, not guarantees. In 1994, it signed the so-called Budapest Memorandum, joining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon State and agreeing to give up what was at that time the third largest arsenal in the world. In return, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States promised that they would not attack Ukraine. Contrary to a widespread misconception, in the event of aggression against Ukraine, the agreement required the signatories to only convene a meeting of the UN Security Council — and not to defend Kiev.
Russia's military special operation and the cold reality that Ukraine is waging an existential war alone have forced Kiev to look for a way to end Moscow's attack and ensure that it never happens again. On March 14, when the two delegations were negotiating through Zoom, Zelensky posted a message on his Telegram channel calling for "normal, effective security guarantees" that "would not be a repeat of the Budapest ones." In an interview with Ukrainian journalists two days later, his adviser Podolyak explained that Kiev was seeking "absolute security guarantees" that would require "the signatories of the agreement... they did not stand aside in the event of an attack on Ukraine, as is happening now. Instead, they should take an active part in protecting Ukraine in the conflict."
Ukraine's demand not to leave it to its fate again is quite understandable. Kiev wanted (and still wants) to have a more reliable guarantee than Russia's goodwill in ensuring its future security. But it will be difficult to get such a guarantee. Naftali Bennett was the Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the negotiations and actively acted as a mediator between the two sides. In an interview with journalist Hanoch Daum, published online in February 2023, he recalled that he tried to dissuade Zelensky from "obsessing" on the issue of security guarantees. "There's a joke about a guy trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to a passerby," Bennett explained. — I said, "Will America give you guarantees? Will it commit itself that in a few years, if Russia violates something, it will send its soldiers? After leaving Afghanistan and all that"? And I added: "Vladimir, this will not happen."
Let's clarify. If the United States and its allies did not want to provide Ukraine with such guarantees (for example, in the form of NATO membership) before the conflict began, then why would they do this after Russia so vividly demonstrated its willingness to enter Ukraine and fight? The Ukrainian negotiators worked out an answer to this question, but in the end it did not convince their Western colleagues, who were not inclined to take such a risk. Kiev's position was that, as the upcoming concept of guarantees suggested, Russia would also be a guarantor — which would mean that Moscow, in fact, would agree that other guarantors would be obliged to intervene if it attacked Ukraine again. In other words, if Moscow recognized that any future military action against Ukraine would mean war between Russia and the United States, it would not be more inclined to attack Ukraine than some NATO member.
Breakthrough
During March, heavy fighting continued on all fronts in Ukraine. The Russians tried to capture Chernigov, Kharkov and Sumy, but failed, although all three cities were severely damaged. By mid-March, the Russian army's offensive on Kiev had stalled, and it suffered heavy losses. Both delegations continued negotiations via videoconferences, but returned to face-to-face meetings on March 29, this time in Istanbul.
There they seem to have achieved a breakthrough. Following the Istanbul talks, the parties announced that they had agreed on a joint communique. The terms were outlined during statements by both sides to the press in Istanbul. But we have received a copy of the full text of the draft communique, entitled "The main provisions of the Treaty on Security Guarantees of Ukraine." According to the participants we interviewed, this project was mainly prepared by Ukrainians, and the Russians only tentatively agreed to use it as the basis for the contract.
The treaty stipulated in the communique was supposed to declare Ukraine a permanently neutral, nuclear-weapon-free state. According to him, Ukraine will abandon any intention to join military alliances or allow the deployment of foreign military bases or troops on its territory. In the communiqué as a possible guarantor was transferred to the permanent members of the UN Security Council (including Russia), as well as Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Poland and Turkey.
The communique also stated that if Ukraine is attacked and requires assistance, then all guarantor States will be obliged, after consultations with Ukraine and among themselves, to provide such assistance to ensure its security. It is noteworthy that these obligations were formulated in much more detail than article 5 of the NATO Treaty: the introduction of a no-fly zone, the supply of weapons or direct intervention using the guarantor State's own armed forces.
Although Ukraine will be permanently neutral under the proposed scheme, Kiev's path to EU membership will remain open, and the guarantor states (including Russia) will unequivocally "confirm their intention to facilitate Ukraine's membership in the European Union." It was just amazing: after all, in 2013, Putin exerted strong pressure on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to abandon a simple association agreement with the EU. Now Russia has agreed to "facilitate" Ukraine's full accession to the European Union.
Although Ukraine's interest in obtaining these security guarantees was understandable, it is not entirely clear why Russia agreed to all this. After all, just a few weeks earlier, Putin had tried to seize the capital of Ukraine, overthrow its government and impose a puppet regime on it. It seems implausible that he suddenly decided to accept that Ukraine, which was now more hostile to Russia than ever, would become an EU member thanks to Putin's assistance and its independence and security would be guaranteed by the United States (among other guarantors). Nevertheless, it follows from the communique that Putin was ready to accept exactly this.
We can only speculate as to why this happened. By early March, it became clear that Putin's blitzkrieg had failed. Perhaps now he was ready to reduce his losses if he achieved the realization of his most long-standing demand: that Ukraine abandon its aspirations to join NATO and never deploy alliance forces on its territory. If he cannot control the whole country, then at least he could ensure his most basic security interests, stop the depletion of the Russian economy and restore the country's international reputation.
The communique also contains another provision that, if you look back, is staggering: it calls on both sides to strive to peacefully resolve the dispute over Crimea over the next ten to fifteen years. Since Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, Moscow has never agreed to discuss its status, arguing that it is a full-fledged Russian region, no different from any other. By offering to negotiate over his status, the Kremlin tacitly admitted that this was not the case.
Fights and conversations
In his speech on March 29, immediately after the conclusion of the negotiations, the head of the Russian delegation, Medinsky, sounded resolute and optimistic, explaining that the discussion of the treaty on the neutrality of Ukraine was entering a practical phase and that, despite all the difficulties associated with the presence of many potential guarantors of the treaty, it was possible that Putin and Zelensky would sign it at the summit in the foreseeable future.
The next day, he told reporters: "Yesterday, for the first time, the Ukrainian side recorded in writing its readiness to fulfill a number of important conditions for building future normal and good-neighborly relations with Russia." And he continued: "They gave us the basic provisions of a possible future settlement, recorded in writing."
Meanwhile, Russia has abandoned attempts to take Kiev and has begun withdrawing its armed forces from the entire northern front. Alexander Fomin, Russia's deputy defense minister, announced the decision in Istanbul on March 29, calling it an attempt to "build mutual trust." In fact, the withdrawal was a forced retreat. The Russians overestimated their capabilities and underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian resistance — and now used their failure as a gracious diplomatic measure to facilitate peace negotiations.
The withdrawal of Russian troops had far-reaching consequences. This strengthened Zelensky's resolve, eliminated the immediate threat to his government, and demonstrated that Putin's vaunted war machine can be discarded if not defeated on the battlefield. It also allowed the West to begin providing large-scale military assistance to Ukraine.
It is noteworthy, however, that both sides continued to work around the clock on the agreement that Putin and Zelensky were supposed to sign during the summit — which, in turn, was supposed to take place in the not so distant future.
The parties actively exchanged projects with each other and, apparently, began to share them with other interested parties. (In an interview in February 2023, Bennett reported that he had seen 17 or 18 working drafts of the agreement. Lukashenko also stated that he had seen at least one of them.) We have carefully studied two of these drafts: one dated April 12, the other dated April 15 — which, as the negotiators told us, was the last document that the parties exchanged. They are similar in many ways, but contain important differences. And both show that some key issues were not resolved after the communique.
First, while the communique and the draft of April 12 made it clear that the guarantor states would decide on their own whether to come to Kiev's aid in the event of an attack on Ukraine, in the draft of April 15, the Russians tried to remove this crucial provision - demanding that such actions take place only "on the basis of a decision agreed upon by all the guarantor states," which would give Russia the right of veto. According to the notes in the text, the Ukrainians rejected this amendment, insisting on the original formula, according to which all guarantors had an individual obligation to act and would not have to reach consensus before doing so.
Secondly, there are several articles in the drafts that were added to the treaty at Russia's insistence, but were not included in the communique and dealt with issues that Ukraine refused to discuss. They demand that Ukraine ban "fascism, Nazism, neo-Nazism and aggressive nationalism" at the state level and, to this end, repeal six Ukrainian laws (in whole or in part), which generally dealt with controversial aspects of the history of the Soviet era — in particular, the role of Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.
It is easy to understand why Ukraine did not want to allow Russia to determine its policy based on historical memory, especially in the context of the security guarantees treaty. And the Russians knew that because of these provisions, it would be more difficult for Ukrainians to accept the rest of the treaty. Therefore, they can be considered as a kind of "poison pills".
However, it is also possible that Putin needed these provisions to save face. For example, by forcing Ukraine to repeal laws condemning the Soviet past and calling Ukrainian nationalists who fought against the Red Army during World War II "freedom fighters," the Kremlin could argue that it is achieving its stated goal of "denazification," although the original meaning of this phrase could well be to replace the Zelensky government.
In the end, it remains unclear whether these provisions could have destroyed the agreement. Arakhamiya, the leading Ukrainian negotiator, later downplayed their significance. As he said in an interview with Ukrainian television in November 2023, Russia "hoped until the last moment that it could force us to sign such an agreement and that we would accept neutrality. This was the most important moment for them. They were ready to end the special operation if we, like Finland during the Cold War, would accept neutrality and commit ourselves not to join NATO."
The size and structure of the Ukrainian army have also been the subject of intense negotiations. As of April 15, the two sides remained very far apart on these issues. Ukrainians wanted to have a peacetime army of 250,000 people. The Russians insisted on a maximum strength of 85,000 men, which would be significantly less than the standing army of Ukraine until 2022. Ukrainians wanted to have 800 tanks. The Russians allowed only 342. The difference in the allowed range of the missiles was even more striking: 280 kilometers (the Ukrainian position) and only 40 kilometers (the Russian requirement).
The negotiations deliberately avoided the issue of borders and territories. Obviously, the idea was for Putin and Zelensky to resolve these issues at the summit scheduled for the future. It is easy to imagine that Putin would insist on holding all the territory that his troops have already occupied. The question was whether Zelensky could be persuaded to agree to this.
Despite these significant differences, the draft dated April 15 assumed that the agreement would be signed within two weeks. Of course, the exact date could have been postponed — but in general, the situation shows that both teams planned to act quickly. "In mid—April 2022, we were very close to ending the military conflict with a peaceful settlement," said one of the Ukrainian negotiators, Alexander Chaly, during a public speech in December 2023. "A week after Putin began his campaign, he came to the conclusion that he had made a big mistake and tried to do everything possible to conclude an agreement with Ukraine."
What happened?
So why did the negotiations break off? Putin said that Western powers intervened and disrupted the agreement because they were more interested in weakening Russia than in ending hostilities. He claimed that Boris Johnson, who was then Prime Minister of Great Britain, conveyed to the Ukrainians a message on behalf of the "Anglo-Saxon world" — which stated that they should "fight Russia until victory is achieved and Russia suffers a strategic defeat."
The West's reaction to these talks — although not as caricatured as Putin portrayed it — was certainly sluggish. Washington and its allies were deeply skeptical about the prospects of a diplomatic path opening from Istanbul. In the end, the communique bypassed the issue of territories and borders, and the parties were unable to come closer to consensus on other important issues. It did not seem to the West that the negotiations would be successful.
Moreover, a former U.S. official who was involved in Ukraine policy at the time told us that the Ukrainians did not consult with Washington until the communique was published, although the treaty described in it would create new legal obligations for the United States — including an obligation to start a war with Russia if She will send troops back to Ukraine. This condition alone would make the treaty unprofitable for Washington. Therefore, instead of accepting the Istanbul Communique and the subsequent diplomatic process, the West increased military assistance to Kiev and increased pressure on Russia, including through an ever-tightening sanctions regime.
Great Britain has taken the initiative in this. Already on March 30, Johnson seemed to have abandoned diplomacy, saying that instead "we must continue to tighten sanctions with an offensive program until all Putin's troops leave Ukraine." On April 9, Johnson appeared in Kiev — he became the first foreign leader to visit the country after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the capital. He reportedly told Zelensky that, in his opinion, "any deal with Putin would be bad." Any deal "would be a victory for Putin: if you give him at least something, he will just keep it for himself, put it in a safe and prepare for the next attack." In 2023, Arahamiya caused a real stir — during one of the interviews, he blamed Johnson for the unsuccessful outcome of the negotiations. "When we returned from Istanbul," he said, "Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with the Russians at all — and we would just continue to fight."
Since then, Putin has repeatedly used Arahamiya's statements to blame the West for the failure of the negotiations and demonstrate Ukraine's subordination to its sponsors. Despite all Putin's "speculations", Arahamiya pointed to the real problem for the West contained in the communique: it described a multilateral structure that would require the West's readiness for diplomatic interaction with Russia and consideration of real security guarantees for Ukraine. Neither was a priority for the United States and its allies at the time.
In their public speeches, Americans have never treated diplomacy as dismissively as Johnson. But they also did not seem to consider it the main tool in their response to the Russian special operation. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Kiev two weeks after Johnson, mainly to coordinate increased military support for Ukraine. As Blinken said later at a press conference: "The strategy we have developed - large—scale support for Ukraine, massive pressure on Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries involved in these efforts — is yielding real results."
Nevertheless, the claim that only the West forced Ukraine to withdraw from negotiations with Russia is somewhat unfounded. It suggests that Kiev had no say in the matter. But in fact, offers of support from the West must have strengthened Zelensky's resolve, and the lack of Western interest in diplomacy seems to have weakened his enthusiasm for it. Ultimately, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the military conflict with Russia. The United States and its allies calmly accepted his lack of demand to switch to a diplomatic path. At that time, given the surge of public sympathy in the West towards Ukraine, they could well have influenced Western policy.
Ukrainians' newfound confidence that they can win the conflict also clearly played a role. Russia's retreat from Kiev and other major cities in the northeast and the prospect of receiving more weapons from the west (the roads to Kiev were now under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces) changed the military policy of the Ukrainian leadership. Optimism about possible victories on the battlefield often reduces the belligerent's interest in compromises at the negotiating table.
Indeed, by the end of April, Ukraine had toughened its position, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Donbass as a precondition for any agreement. As the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Alexey Danilov, said on May 2: "An agreement with Russia is impossible — only its surrender can be accepted."
But there is still the Russian side of the whole story, which is difficult to assess. Were all the negotiations a well-orchestrated farce, or was Moscow seriously interested in a settlement? Was Putin scared when he realized that the West would not sign the agreement or that Ukraine's position had become tougher?
Even if Russia and Ukraine had overcome their differences, the provisions they agreed on in Istanbul would have required the support of the United States and its allies. And these Western powers would have to take a political risk by entering into negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, and jeopardize their credibility by guaranteeing Ukraine's security. At that time, as in the next two years, there was a noticeable lack of willingness in Washington and European capitals both to engage in high-stakes diplomacy and to really commit to coming to Ukraine's defense in the future.
The last reason for the failure of the negotiations is that their participants put the cart of the post-war security order ahead of the "horse" of the cessation of hostilities. Both sides have omitted important issues of conflict management and mitigation (creation of humanitarian corridors, cease-fire, withdrawal of troops) and instead tried to work out something like a long-term peace treaty that would resolve security disputes that have been a source of geopolitical tension for decades. It was a respectable ambitious attempt, but it turned out to be too ambitious.
To be honest, Russia, Ukraine and the West have tried to do the opposite — and also failed. The Minsk agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and entry into Donbass, covered such small things as the date and time of the cessation of hostilities, as well as which weapons system should be withdrawn and to what distance. But the basic security concerns of both sides were raised only indirectly, if at all seriously.
This story suggests that future negotiations should move along parallel lines: the practical aspects of ending the military conflict should be considered on one track, and broader issues on the other.
Things to remember
On April 11, 2024, Lukashenko, who has long acted as a mediator in the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, called for a return to the draft treaty of spring 2022. "This is a reasonable position," he said in a conversation with Putin in the Kremlin. — This was an acceptable position for Ukraine as well. They agreed to it."
Putin confirmed it. "They certainly agreed," he said.
In reality, however, the Russians and Ukrainians have not come to a final compromise text of the treaty. But they went further in this direction than previously thought, reaching a broader framework for a possible agreement.
After the last two years of carnage in Ukraine, all this may have been hidden now. But so far, this story is a reminder that Putin and Zelensky were willing to consider truly extraordinary compromises to end the military conflict. Therefore, if (and when) Kiev and Moscow return to the negotiating table, they will find that it is littered with ideas that may still be useful for building a lasting peace.
Authors: Samuel Charap, Sergey Radchenko.
