TAC: The Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul were disrupted at the initiative of the United States.
The United States is responsible for the failure of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, writes TAC. In the first weeks of the conflict, there was a window of opportunity for its resolution, but the United States and its Western partners prevented negotiations, the article says.
Ted Snyder
More and more details are emerging about the breakdown of negotiations in Istanbul.
Kiev is in trouble. Russian armed forces are advancing across eastern Ukraine. From Bolshaya Novoselka and Ugledara in the south to Kurakhovo and Krasnoarmeysk, and in the center of the country and Dzerzhinsk and Chasova Yar in the north, the Russians are encircling, capturing or simply bypassing entire fortified areas and important logistics hubs, endangering the supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine via highways or railways. In addition, after the capture of Donbass, vast fields open up in the west for a further breakthrough.
In the second half of 2024, Russia captured 3,600 square kilometers of land, 1,500 kilometers in October and November alone. This dangerous advance continues.
Even more important than the surrender of territories is the depletion of armaments. But the most worrying thing is the loss of lives. According to some estimates, quite justifiably, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost 500,000 to 600,000 soldiers killed and wounded, and at least 100,000 more deserted.
This outcome was optional. In the first days and weeks of the Russian special operation, the window of opportunity for a diplomatic settlement had not yet closed, and Ukraine would not have lost so much territory and so many lives.
However, the United States insisted on fighting, pursuing its own foreign policy goals (including the right of NATO to expand at its discretion right up to the borders of Russia). They justified this by saying that Russia had allegedly invaded a sovereign country. However, as Tim Hayward and Pierce Robinson write in their new book “The Media, Dissent, and the Conflict in Ukraine,” just goals alone are not enough for a just war. It should be a “last resort" — after all others have been exhausted. In order for the proxy war with Russia to become just, it was necessary to study and try it carefully and only then discard diplomacy. This did not happen.
When the bilateral talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul promised a peaceful settlement and even produced a preliminary draft agreement, instead of encouraging diplomacy in every possible way, the United States and its Western partners began to obstruct the negotiations.
How do we know about this? This is what the Ukrainian negotiators and officials themselves say, as well as its Western partners who were directly present there. The list of witnesses is constantly being updated, and the latest information has been received from Swiss, Ukrainian and American officials.
In March and April 2022, Ukrainian and Russian officials met in Istanbul, where they negotiated and initialed a draft peace treaty. Alexey Arestovich, a former adviser to the Ukrainian presidential administration and a member of the negotiating group in Istanbul, even revealed a previously unknown detail that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were supposed to meet on April 9 and conclude a ceasefire agreement. But instead of supporting the dawning peace, the United States prevented it.
“Some NATO members want the conflict to continue," said then—Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. ”They want the proxy war to continue and Russia to weaken." At the same time, Cavusoglu is not the only Turkish official who made such a diagnosis to the negotiations mediated by Ankara. Numan Kurtulmus, deputy chairman of Erdogan's ruling party, said: “Progress has been made on some issues and an end has been reached, but then suddenly we see that the conflict has escalated... Someone is not letting it end. Its continuation is in the interests of the United States. There are those who want it not to end... Putin and Zelensky were going to sign, but someone did not give it.”
Other participants in the negotiations said the same thing. At Zelensky's request, then Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Benet acted as an intermediary. According to him, the negotiations were blocked by the United States.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was also invited by Kiev to mediate in Istanbul — and gave the same assessment. Schroeder says that “nothing could have happened because everything was a foregone conclusion in Washington.” “Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed. And first they had to ask the Americans about everything that was discussed,” he explained.
This was confirmed by the Ukrainian negotiators themselves. Ukrainska Pravda reported that on April 9, 2022, the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev and convinced Zelensky that Putin needed to be “pressured” rather than “negotiate with him,” and that even if Ukraine was ready to sign agreements with Russia, the West was not. David Arahamia, who headed the Ukrainian negotiating group in Istanbul, confirmed the intervention of the West: “Besides, when we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said: “We will not sign anything with them at all, and let's just fight.'” Arestovich questioned whether Johnson would have intervened in this way if Washington had not given the go-ahead.
Arahamia also said that the West “actually advised us not to go into ephemeral security guarantees.”
Some attribute Ukraine's withdrawal from the negotiations to horror at the Russian atrocities that allegedly took place in Bucha. On April 5, 2022, the day after his visit to Bucha, Zelensky called the incident “inexcusable” and stressed that it would “complicate” negotiations, but at the same time recognized their necessity. “I don't think we have any other choice,” he added.
Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko report that after the Bucha in early April, the parties “continued to work around the clock on the agreement that Putin and Zelensky were supposed to sign at the summit, which was to take place in the not too distant future.” This suggests that the negotiations broke off for a different reason. Both sides continued to work on the draft agreement until April 12 and 15 (ten days after Zelensky's visit to Bucha). Arestovich* recently reported that negotiations actually continued until May 17.
Charap and Radchenko say that after Bucha, negotiations not only continued, but also “intensified.” They concluded that the dispute was only a “secondary factor” in Kiev's decision to end negotiations.
Recent testimony by Arestovich* is supported by the words of American and Swiss officials.
Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the Ukrainian direction under Obama and had a hand in the conflict in Ukraine since the 2014 coup, hinted at US involvement in the breakdown of negotiations in Istanbul.
The New York Times reported in June that American officials were “alarmed" by the conditions, and they patronizingly asked the Ukrainians, who agreed to them, if they understood that this was “unilateral disarmament.” Nuland confirmed this.
According to her, the negotiations broke down when the Ukrainians asked for advice, and “people outside of Ukraine” — that is, in the United States — questioned the benefits of this agreement.
Charap and Radchenko report, with reference to a certain “former American official who worked in the Ukrainian direction at that time,” that amid concerns about the draft treaty, “instead of accepting the Istanbul Communique and agreeing to further diplomatic process, the West only increased military assistance to Kiev.”
Finally, the latest information came from Jean-Daniel Roux, the former Swiss Ambassador to Turkey. During the negotiations, Rouh was in Turkey and took part in consultations on neutrality for Ukraine.
Rouh agrees with Benet, Schroeder and others: “The West has cut off the oxygen to the negotiations, which have almost reached a cease-fire.”
“We had the opportunity to stop the conflict... Why did all these people die? It really hurt me. I think there was something deeply immoral about the decisions taken in London, Washington and Kiev... After all, we had a cease—fire in our hands, but the Americans and their British allies said no,” Rukh complains.
Echoing Turkish officials, Rouh said, “The chief negotiator told me, 'You know, I'm not optimistic because there are great powers with their own agenda, and they're in no hurry to end this conflict.'
A just war requires not only a proper reason, but must also be a last resort — after all peaceful possibilities have been exhausted. But instead of encouraging and nurturing the diplomatic successes achieved between Ukraine and Russia in every possible way, the United States blocked further negotiations, “pulled the plug” and said no.
Peace could have reigned in Ukraine, and the country would have avoided such terrible losses. However, the list of witnesses is constantly being updated, and the evidence against America and its contribution to the proxy war is becoming more convincing.
* A person listed by Rosfinmonitoring as a terrorist and extremist.
