© Cem Ozdel / Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: Delegations from Russia and Ukraine meet in Istanbul, Türkiye on March 29, 2022.
The possibility of compromise was "very real" in April 2022, a key negotiator from Kiev's side has said
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sought a peace agreement with Ukraine in April 2022, according to Ambassador Aleksandr Chaly, a senior member of the Ukrainian delegation.Chaly expressed this perspective during an event at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) in early December, where he dissected the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The ex-deputy foreign minister is an associate fellow at the Swiss government-funded foundation. His remarks drew media attention after a video of the event was released on YouTube last week.
Chaly analyzed the roots of the ongoing conflict, which he described as "hard competition" for Ukraine that the US and the EU have with Russia, as well as Kiev's intention to join the EU and NATO.
He stressed that "Russian aggression" was not inevitable since the parties had sufficient tools to resolve their differences.The diplomat called Putin's decision to launch the special military operation against Ukraine in February 2022 "a crime" and "a mistake" and claimed that the Russian leader had been misled by "his own propaganda and his intelligence services."
Approximately a week into hostilities, Chaly believes Putin recognized the unrealistic nature of his expectations and actively pursued a negotiated resolution. He based his analysis on his personal involvement in the peace talks, which were first hosted by Minsk and culminated in Istanbul in late March with a draft truce approved by both sides.
"Putin ... tried to do everything possible to conclude [the] agreement with Ukraine," the diplomat told the audience. The text made concessions to Kiev, compared to Russia's initial position, and it was Putin's "personal decision" to accept it, he claimed.
"We've managed to find a very real compromise. Putin really wanted to reach some peaceful agreement with Ukraine."
Chaly mused that "for some reason," the Istanbul communique did not transform into an actual treaty.
The Ukrainian delegation's leader,
MP David Arakhamia, said in late November that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Ukrainians to "just continue fighting" during his visit to Kiev after the conclusion of the talks.Remarks made by senior Russian officials, including Putin, partially back Chaly's account. The president said during his year-end press conference this month that Russia's stated goals of demilitarization and "de-Nazification" of Ukraine would have been addressed under the pre-approved treaty.
"Options remain to either achieve them through an agreement or by force," Putin stressed.
Comment: The article adds to the list of articles that document what the Ukrainians and Russians tried to achieve. Putin talks about de-Nazification. Does that translate to de-NATOification, if what Russia wanted most of all, was for Ukraine to stay neutral and give up on NATO membership?
See also:
November 27, 2023
The Jews and Boris Johnson: Zelensky's top political ally looking for scapegoats as Ukrainian elites begin to accept the war is lost In this article Tarik Cyril Amar writes:
Regarding the peace negotiations that took place in Belarus at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, Arakhamia tells Moseichuk that the Russian delegation had one "key aim": to make Ukraine accept neutrality and give up on NATO membership. In Arakhamia's own words, "everything else" Russia talked about, such as demands regarding "denazification, Russian-speaking populations, and blah-blah-blah" was merely "cosmetic political seasoning."
Let that sink in: Here is a prime negotiator for Ukraine and one of the Zelensky regime's top men stating explicitly that all that peace really required at that very early stage in the large-scale war was Kiev committing to neutrality and giving up on its NATO ambitions. The war could have stopped in the spring of 2022; that is, one-and-a-half very bloody years ago. And for Kiev, this would have come at the price of giving up on a NATO ambition that is based on a false promise encapsulated in the foul compromise of the 2008 Bucharest summit. A pledge which the West has no intention of keeping, as demonstrated again at the 2023 Vilnius summit.
Arakhamia's admission proves, once more, that there have always been viable alternatives to war. Western information warriors still denying this empirically established fact simply refuse to face their own terrible responsibility for stonewalling negotiations throughout. Likewise, Arakhamia demonstrates that everyone in Ukraine and the West who insisted that Moscow's war aims were maximalist (whether to obliterate Ukraine as a state or to march right through it to, at least, Berlin) were flat out wrong, whether by mistake or on purpose. At least, that's if we believe Arakhamia, who had direct experience with real representatives of Russia and not the fantasy creatures populating the minds of all too many Westerners, from Yale to Berlin. And note: Arakhamia has absolutely no reason to embellish Moscow's record.
[...]
One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.
After Belarus there were talks in Türkiye:
November 22, 2023
Boris Johnson derailed Ukraine peace deal - key Zelensky ally The article has many links to articles that describe how the peace negotiations were derailed. In the article there is:
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson played a key role in derailing a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, telling Ukraine to "just continue fighting," top Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia has said. Arakhamia, the head of President Vladimir Zelensky's parliamentary faction, was the chief negotiator at the botched peace talks in Istanbul, held early into the ongoing conflict.
The MP made the bombshell revelation on Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel. "Russia's goal was to put pressure on us so that we would take neutrality. This was the main thing for them," he said. "And that we would give an obligation that we would not join NATO. This was the main thing."
However, Kiev did not actually trust Moscow to keep its word and did not want to reach such a deal without third-party "security guarantees," Arakhamia claimed, while revealing the lead role in derailing the agreement was played by Johnson.
When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with [the Russians] at all. And [said] 'let's just continue fighting.'
The pivotal role played by Johnson in Ukraine's decision to scrap the draft agreement with Russia - signed by Arakhamia personally in Istanbul - has long been rumored, with initial reports on the matter emerging in Ukrainian media as early as May 2022. Until now, however, it was neither denied nor confirmed by any of the parties involved.
March 29, 2022:
Highlights from Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Turkey
January 22, 2022:
'Threat of Russian invasion is no more than last year' says Ukrainian parliament leader
January 18, 2022:
UK sends 'defensive weapons and small number of British troops' to Ukraine whilst also inviting Russia for diplomatic talks
September 04, 2016:
Rasmussen: It's time for NATO to provide Ukraine with lethal weaponry
As usual: in 1939 they made everything they could do to prevent any kind of agreement between Germany and Poland — to make the war started „at last” — and now they did every effort to keep that conflict going.
It's the eternal British policy to weaken everyone „on the continent” — and especially if a sucker can be found, that is going to fight in British interest just for a few vague promises.