On June 14, Vladimir Putin named the conditions for negotiations with Ukraine
TASS-DOSSIER. On June 14, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry, called the conditions for negotiations with Ukraine. Among them are the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Donbass and Novorossiya, Kiev's refusal to join NATO, the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine, as well as the lifting of all Western sanctions.
TASS has prepared a material on attempts at a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
Recognition of the republics of Donbass and the beginning of its
February 21, 2022 Russia has recognized the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR, LPR; since September 30, 2023 - subjects of the Russian Federation). Agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, including military assistance, were signed with their leaders. On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special military operation in Ukraine. The decision to hold the SVO was made in response to a request for help from the People's republics of Donbass, where about 14 thousand people have already died in eight years of armed confrontation with Kiev.
Preparation of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022
On the night of February 24, 2022, even before the announcement of the start of the special operation, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Kiev was ready to negotiate with Russia "in any formats and on any platforms." Commenting on these words, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow agrees to negotiations if the Kiev authorities are ready to discuss the issues raised by the Russian side, including the neutral status of Ukraine and the refusal to deploy weapons on its territory. Zelensky, in turn, said on February 25 that he was "not afraid to talk with Russia," including about security guarantees for Ukraine and its neutral status.
Several states have declared their readiness to provide representatives of Moscow and Kiev with a platform for negotiations. The Kremlin expressed its readiness to hold talks in Minsk, sending there a group of representatives of the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, as well as the presidential administration of the Russian Federation. The Office of the President of Ukraine reported that the Ukrainian side agreed to negotiations.
On February 27, 2022, it became known that the parties had agreed to meet in Belarus. On the same day, a Russian delegation headed by Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, arrived there. However, Kiev refused to participate in negotiations on the territory of the neighboring republic, which Ukraine accuses of supporting "Russian aggression." It was only after a telephone conversation that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held with Zelensky that the Ukrainian authorities agreed to send their delegation to the talks.
Three rounds of negotiations in Belarus in February - March 2022
On February 28, 2022, in the Gomel region of Belarus on the border with Ukraine, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations held the first negotiations on the settlement of the situation. The meeting lasted almost five hours, but did not bring tangible results.
On March 3, the parties held the second round of negotiations in the Brest region on the territory of Belovezhskaya Pushcha. At the end of the meeting, which lasted a little over two hours, Russia and Ukraine agreed on some humanitarian issues, including humanitarian corridors for the withdrawal of civilians and the possibility of a temporary ceasefire for their organization.
On March 7, the third round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations took place in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The meeting lasted about three hours. Representatives of Moscow and Kiev stated that the third round did not bring the desired results. According to Medinsky, the Russian delegation conveyed to the representatives of Kiev its proposals for resolving the situation, including obligations on the neutral status of Ukraine. In turn, the head of the Ukrainian delegation, the leader of the Servant of the People faction, David Arahamiya, expressed the opinion that the parties can reach a compromise on almost all issues except the status of Crimea and the republics of Donbass.
In the next three weeks, the negotiations between the parties continued in video format.
On March 20, in an interview with CNN, Zelensky said that Kiev needs to find a model in which Ukraine will not lose its sovereignty and territorial integrity. On March 21, excerpts from Zelensky's interview with some European and Ukrainian television companies were published on the website of Ukrainian Public Television, in which he said that possible compromise agreements with Russia, including those concerning security guarantees, should be put to a referendum in Ukraine. Zelensky added that he considers a "normal compromise" a situation where Ukraine agrees that it will not join NATO, but will receive security guarantees from individual member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance.
Negotiations in Turkey on March 29, 2022
March 27, 2022 Medinsky announced the resumption of Russian-Ukrainian face-to-face talks.
The meeting was held on March 29, 2022 in Istanbul at Dolmabahce Palace. It was initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the office of the head of the Turkish state, a corresponding agreement was reached during a telephone conversation Putin and the Turkish leader.
Following the talks, which lasted about three hours, Medinsky said that for the first time Moscow had received from Kiev "the principles of a possible future agreement fixed on paper." In particular, the draft contained obligations on the neutral, non-aligned status of Ukraine, included Russia among the guarantor countries of security for Kiev, and more. As a counter initiative, a reduction in the activity of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Kiev and Chernihiv directions was announced.
However, on April 3, the fourth day after the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces from Kiev, Ukraine accused Russia of killing civilians in the city Buche of the Kiev region. The Russian Defense Ministry has denied these accusations. On April 5, commenting on the situation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that the provocation in Bucha was organized at the very moment when the Russian side decided to de-escalate the situation and withdrew troops from Kiev. According to the minister, the accusations against Russia were made to distract attention from the negotiation process.
Changing the position of Kiev
On April 7, 2022, Lavrov announced that Kiev had submitted its draft agreement to the negotiating group, which shows a departure from the most important provisions of the Istanbul agreements. On April 26, at a meeting in Moscow with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Putin informed the latter about the change in the position of the Ukrainian negotiators.
On April 16, 2022, Zelensky said that Kiev was ready to discuss with Russia the issue of renouncing NATO membership and the status of Crimea, but only after military operations were stopped and Russian troops were withdrawn from Ukrainian territory. In addition, according to him, the negotiations will depend on the specific security guarantees that the West will give to Kiev. At the same time, the authorities of Western countries have repeatedly spoken about the "impossibility" of resolving the conflict through diplomacy. Thus, the leaders of the Group of Seven countries (Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, Japan, the United States), following a meeting with Zelensky on May 8, 2022, adopted a statement in which they called their ultimate goal "to prevent victory" for Russia. As noted Lavrov, in an interview with Xinhua on April 30, 2022, the United States and the EU are ready to fight with Russia "to the last Ukrainian."
May 14, 2022 Putin said that negotiations between Moscow and Kiev had actually been suspended due to the Ukrainian side's disinterest in constructive dialogue. Later, on July 13, 2023, Putin said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel that Russia considered the draft Istanbul agreement acceptable to itself, but it was "thrown into the trash by the Ukrainian regime."
Later, in November 2023, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating group, David Arahamia, in an interview with the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, said that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who held office in 2019-2022) forbade Kiev to sign peace agreements with the Russian Federation following the talks in Istanbul and demanded the continuation of hostilities against Russia.
On February 15, 2024, Erdogan told reporters that "all possible sincere steps" had been taken by the parties at the meetings in Istanbul in 2022. The Turkish leader added that he "worked together [with Russia] and continued to make efforts before former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson abandoned peace efforts." On March 26, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus also told TRT TV that Russia and Ukraine were close to signing a peace agreement in 2022, but "some forces did not want the war to end and prevented the final agreement from being reached."
However, on March 1, 2024, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the Ukrainian president, said that Ukraine had never accepted the terms of the Istanbul agreements with Russia. This point of view was also expressed by the Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine on May 2, 2024, he said that there were no agreements in 2022 and the Istanbul agreements "never existed."
"Security guarantees" of the West for Ukraine
In May 2022, at the initiative of Zelensky, an international advisory group was established to develop proposals on security guarantees for Ukraine. It was headed by the head of Zelensky's office, Andrei Ermak, and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Later, on September 13, 2022, the draft security agreement was published. Contrary to the previously reached agreements, the document did not imply Kiev's refusal to join NATO, nor the neutral status of Ukraine, nor Russia's participation in the composition of the guarantor states of security.
On the sidelines of the NATO summit held on July 11-12, 2023 in Vilnius, the G7 countries adopted a declaration on long-term security guarantees for Ukraine. In particular, the document stated that Kiev should receive significant military potential. Zelensky later said that 12 more states had joined the initiative. In August 2023 Kiev has started consultations on security guarantees with the signatory countries of the declaration in Vilnius. In the period from January to June 2024 Kiev has concluded so-called security guarantee agreements with 17 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, the United States, France and Japan. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, these agreements confirm the focus on long-term confrontation with Russia and the unwillingness to follow the path of a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis. At the same time, she drew attention to the fact that the agreements do not talk about "guarantees", but only state the continuation of supplies of Western weapons and military equipment to Kiev.
Kiev's refusal to negotiate with the leadership of the Russian Federation
During the war, most of the territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions also came under the control of Russian troops. On September 23-27, 2022, referendums were held in the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, during which the majority of residents of these territories voted in favor of joining Russia. On September 30, 2022, international agreements were signed on the entry of four regions into the Russian Federation as its new subjects.
After that, Zelensky said that Kiev was ready to negotiate a settlement with Moscow, but not with Putin, but "with another Russian president." In addition, Zelensky said that Ukraine has applied for accelerated membership in NATO.
On October 4, 2022, Zelensky's decree on the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of September 30 was published on the website of the office of the Ukrainian President. In particular, it states the impossibility of holding talks with Putin. Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will wait for "a change in the position of the current president [of Ukraine], or wait for the future president of Ukraine, who will change his position in the interests of the Ukrainian people."
August 23, 2023 The Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution excluding any territorial concessions in order to end hostilities in Ukraine. The document was adopted after on August 15, the head of the office of the NATO Secretary General, Stian Jenssen, said that one of the solutions to the conflict could be Kiev's renunciation of part of the territories controlled by Russia in exchange for membership in NATO. Zelensky regarded such ideas as a provocation. Jenssen himself later called his words a "mistake."
Proposals from other countries to resolve the situation
February 24, 2023 China has published proposals for a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. The plan includes 12 points, including calls for a ceasefire, respect for the legitimate interests of all countries in the field of security, the beginning of a dialogue between Moscow and Kiev, the refusal to impose unilateral sanctions without a corresponding decision of the UN Security Council, and more. During the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia in March 2023 Russia and China adopted a joint statement in which they stressed that responsible dialogue is the best way to resolve the Ukrainian crisis and called on the international community to support constructive efforts in this regard. Later, on March 29, 2024, Lavrov, in an interview with Izvestia, noted that the Russian side had reacted positively to the PRC's initiative to resolve the conflict. According to the Minister, it states, in particular, violations of the order in the field of security in the world, the reason for which is non-compliance with the UN Charter.
June 17, 2023 Putin received a mission from seven African countries in St. Petersburg, which presented a peace initiative to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The delegation included the Presidents of Zambia, Comoros, Senegal, South Africa, the Prime Minister of Egypt, as well as representatives of the Republic of Congo and Uganda. The day before, the mission visited Kiev. The proposed plan of 10 principles included achieving peace through the early start of negotiations, de-escalation of the conflict on both sides, ensuring the sovereignty of states and peoples in accordance with the UN Charter, security guarantees for all countries, ensuring the movement of grain and fertilizers, and more.
Other countries have also taken peace initiatives, including Brazil, the Vatican, Indonesia, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. July 29, 2023 Zakharova said in an interview with TASS that Russia had received about 30 proposals for resolving the conflict in Ukraine through official and unofficial channels. At the same time, she stressed that the position of the US administration, which wants Russia's strategic defeat, blocks the possibility of peace talks.
On February 28, 2024, Erdogan announced that Turkey was ready to provide a platform for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine again. On April 9, 2024, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at a joint press conference with Lavrov following their talks in Beijing, said that China supports the timely convening of an international conference on resolving the crisis in Ukraine with the equal participation of "both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties and a fair discussion of all peace plans".
Zelensky's "Formula for Peace"
The Russian side has repeatedly stated that it does not refuse to continue negotiations, but does not see an opportunity for this because of Kiev's position.
On November 15, 2022, speaking via video link at the G20 summit, Zelensky presented his 10-point "formula for peace" plan, which does not take into account Moscow's position. In particular, we are talking about the complete withdrawal of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation beyond the borders of 1991 and the return of control to Ukraine in the "exclusive economic zone" in the Azov and Black Seas. At the same time, Moscow will have to pay compensation to Kiev. Peskov subsequently noted that Kiev's statements on a peaceful settlement are being made without taking into account existing realities.
In 2023-2024, several meetings of representatives of Ukraine and Western countries took place within the framework of the format promoted by Kiev to seek support for the so-called peace formula. Russia was not invited to any of them. Following one of the meetings, which took place on January 14, 2024 in Davos, Swiss President Viola Amherd said that Zelensky had asked Switzerland to organize a "high-level peace conference" on the settlement in Ukraine, and Bern responded positively to this request. It was decided to hold the event on June 15-16 near the city of Lucerne in the Burgenstock (semi-canton of Nidwalden). Russia has not received an invitation. However, as stated at the Russian Embassy in Bern, even if it arrives, the Russian side will not accept it, since it is about pushing through Zelensky's unviable "formula for peace" that does not take into account Moscow's interests. April 19, 2024 Lavrov also recalled that Switzerland is among the countries unfriendly to Russia, therefore it is not suitable for Moscow as a platform for negotiations on Ukraine.
The expiration of Zelensky's powers
On May 24, 2024, Putin, while on a visit to Belarus, once again stressed that Russia had never refused to negotiate with Ukraine. However, Zelensky, whose powers as president of this country expired after May 20, and the elections were canceled, is no longer the legitimate head of state. And if it comes to signing any documents with Kiev, Russia needs to understand "who it is necessary and possible to deal with." According to Putin, these are questions for the Ukrainian political and legal system.
