Translated material
Russia demanded that Ukraine restore Donbass at its own expense and recognize it as independent
The draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine, drawn up on March 7, 2022, has been published . The first demands of the Russian side “allow us to understand what Russia’s initial requests were,” writes Sistema, an investigative project of Present Time and Radio Liberty. The draft agreement was handed over to Sistema by an anonymous Ukrainian source; its authenticity was confirmed to the publication by a source from the Russian side.
Sistema compared the draft agreement dated March 7 with the previously published draft dated April 15 , which was handed over to Vladimir Putin. Investigators concluded that Russia's initial demands were reduced, and the Ukrainian side managed to change many of the wordings in the agreement.
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According to both published versions, during the negotiations Russia did not change its demand for Ukraine’s neutral status, but within a month the Ukrainian side managed to include in the agreement a description of a mechanism for protecting the country from a new attack. Ukraine proposed making Russia, Great Britain, China, the USA and France guarantors of its security. Russia also proposed adding Belarus and Turkey.
The first draft of the agreement would oblige Ukraine to recognize Crimea and Sevastopol as part of Russia, and the “DPR” and “LPR” as independent republics. Later, the countries adopted a communiqué in Istanbul, in which Ukraine did not renounce its 1991 borders, and proposed to resolve the issue of territory ownership in the future diplomatically.
“Russia and Ukraine were rather far from any kind of agreement, although the parties did a lot of work and outlined the parameters of this possible agreement,” Sistema reports the words of sources familiar with the positions of both sides.
Initially, Russia demanded that the Ukrainian army be reduced to 50 thousand people. In the April version, this requirement changed to 85 thousand, but the Ukrainian side insisted on 250 thousand people.
Also in March, Russia demanded to make Russian the state language, restore the Donetsk and Lugansk regions at the expense of the Ukrainian budget, legalize Soviet symbols, withdraw foreign forces and advisers from the country, and stop military assistance to Ukraine.
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Leading Carnegie Center expert Eric Ciaramella explained to Sistema that the first treaty would have spoken of Ukraine’s capitulation: “The document was structured as if Ukraine were an aggressor defeated on the battlefield, which, of course, did not correspond to reality. It is difficult to say whether this was an attempt to negotiate in good faith, because such conditions would be unacceptable to any Ukrainian. They would neutralize Ukraine to such an extent that it would become defenseless.”
A Sistema source familiar with Vladimir Putin’s position on the negotiations told the publication that “SVO goals” do not exist, and Putin can “at any moment declare anything he wants as his victory and the achievement of his goals.”
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The first negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took place in Belarus on February 28, 2022, four days after the Russian invasion began. On March 29, in Istanbul, the parties drew up a communiqué on the neutral status of Ukraine and security guarantees; Russia soon withdrew its troops from Kyiv. The last known draft peace agreement was drawn up in April.
According to the Financial Times, in October of this year, Russia and Ukraine, through the mediation of Qatar, began “preliminary negotiations” on suspending mutual attacks on energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky this fall presented to the Verkhovna Rada and Western countries a “victory plan” that would allow Ukraine to join NATO and lift restrictions on strikes against targets in Russia. Later, Zelensky was outraged that The New York Times published a secret paragraph of the plan in which Ukraine asked for missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers.
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