After invading Ukraine, Russia offered peace deal resembling demand to surrender – Radio Liberty

Journalists at Radio Liberty have analysed a draft "peace agreement" that Russia presented to Ukraine in the early days of the full-scale invasion. The agreement demanded that Ukraine reduce the size of its army, relinquish arms, recognise the so-called "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics", finance the rebuilding of Donbas, lift sanctions from Russia, and reinstate Soviet symbols in the country.

Source: Radio Liberty

Details: The draft, titled Agreement on Regulating the Situation in Ukraine and Ukrainian Neutrality, is dated 7 March 2022 – 11 days after Russia’s invasion and one week after the start of Ukrainian-Russian negotiations. It was drawn up by the Kremlin and presented during the third round of talks in Belarus.

Radio Liberty obtained the document from a Ukrainian source, and a Russian source close to the negotiations has confirmed its authenticity.

Quote: "Had the Ukrainian authorities accepted these conditions, it would have turned Ukraine into a puppet entity with a nominal neutral status, with a tiny, toothless army, devoid of NATO protection, and with no chance of regaining control over Crimea or Donbas. Ukraine would have been forced to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in their entirety, as well as large territories that were still under Kyiv’s control at that time."

Details: The draft agreement is reported to consist of six pages and four pages of appendices. The Russians included 18 articles covering various areas: the parameters of Ukraine's neutrality (military and international obligations), border issues, humanitarian issues (language, religion, history), and the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Kremlin demanded that Ukraine's army be reduced to 50,000 troops, including 1,500 officers. The country would also have had only four ships, 55 helicopters and 300 tanks.

In addition, Ukraine was to undertake "not to develop, produce, purchase or deploy on its territory missile weapons" with a range of more than 250 km. Radio Liberty notes that this is the distance that separates the Crimean Bridge from the Ukrainian-controlled city of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Russia also reserved the right to ban Ukraine from using "any other types of weapons that may be developed as a result of scientific research" in the future.

Under the agreement, Ukraine would have had to recognise the independence of the so-called "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics" within the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Ukraine would also have had to rebuild Donbas infrastructure destroyed since 2014 at its own expense.

The Russian Federation's demands included the lifting of all sanctions – both Ukrainian and international – imposed on Russia, as well as the withdrawal of all international lawsuits filed since 2014 and the reinstatement of all property rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The agreement demanded that Ukraine "lift all bans and introduce no further bans on symbols associated in the states with the victory over Nazism," which meant the de facto legalisation of Soviet and communist symbols in Ukraine. Russia also insisted that Russian be recognised as an official language in Ukraine.

Previously: The Wall Street Journal reported on 1 March 2024 that it had analysed a draft peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia dated 15 April 2022 and believes that the Kremlin's goals remained largely unchanged after two years and that in the event of negotiations, it would once again seek to turn Ukraine into a neutral and vulnerable state.

Background:

• On 24 February 2022, after an eight-year hybrid war, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations began on 28 February.
• On 29 March 2022, the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul publicly put forward its proposals to Russia regarding security guarantees, Crimea and Donbas. Russia did not respond to them.
• Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, claimed that Ukraine had declared its readiness to fulfil Russia's "principal demands" in Istanbul, but he said nothing about the withdrawal of troops and made it clear that the Kremlin would not compromise on Crimea and Donbas.
• On 16 April 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that a peace treaty with Russia could consist of two documents: one on security guarantees for Ukraine and another on its relations with the Russian Federation.
• On 30 September 2022, Zelenskyy put into effect a resolution of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council which stated that it was impossible to negotiate with Vladimir Putin and that Ukraine's defence capabilities needed to be strengthened. He later explained that Ukraine was not agreeing to negotiations because Putin's statements about his desire for peace were not sincere.

Read more: From Zelenskyy's "surrender" to Putin's surrender: how the negotiations with Russia are going 

Before and after the counteroffensive: Are there perspectives in peace negotiations with Russia?

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