In the first days of the full-scale invasion, Russia offered Ukraine an agreement that essentially meant Kyiv's capitulation.
Radio Liberty reports this, citing its own sources.
What agreement did the Russian Federation offer Ukraine after February 24, 2022
Journalists received a draft agreement from a Ukrainian source familiar with the negotiations. And a Russian source close to the negotiations confirmed its authenticity. It is noted that both spoke anonymously.
Now watching
A project called The Treaty on the Settlement of the Situation in Ukraine and the Neutrality of Ukraine is dated March 7, 2022.
It was handed over to the Ukrainian delegation on the same day during the third round of talks in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus. It is the first known document outlining Moscow's terms for a peace agreement after the start of a full-scale invasion.
The publication notes that if the Ukrainian authorities had agreed to these terms back then, the country would have turned into a puppet entity, with a fictitious neutral status, a tiny toothless army, no protection from NATO states, and no chance of regaining control over Crimea or Donbas. In addition, it would be necessary to recognize the “independence” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
What the document contains
The document from March 2022 contains six pages of the main agreement and four pages of appendices.
18 articles cover various areas: the parameters of Ukraine's neutrality (military and international obligations), border issues, humanitarian issues (language, religion, history), and the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation.
Russia's demands according to the document
- Ukraine was to reduce its army to 50,000 people, including 1,500 officers.
- Ukraine was asked “not to develop, produce, purchase, or deploy on its territory missile weapons of any type with a firing range of more than 250 km.”
- Russia wanted Ukraine to recognize the independence of the LPR and DPR within the administrative regions of Ukraine (as of February 24, 2022, the Russians controlled only part of these regions and did not occupy them completely even now).
- The Kremlin demanded the lifting of all sanctions, both Ukrainian and international. and the withdrawal of all international claims filed since 2014.
- Ukraine must take on the costs of restoring the infrastructure of Donbass, destroyed since 2014.
- The Russian Federation insisted that the Russian language receive the status of a state language and demanded the restoration of all property rights of the UOC MP.
- In the document, the Russians also demanded “to cancel and no longer introduce any bans on symbols that are associated in states with the victory over Nazism”, that is, in fact, to legalize Soviet and communist symbols in Ukraine again.
The Russian side added to the document a list of Ukrainian laws, which its authors called examples “nazification and glorification of Nazism”.
— The agreement would have left Ukraine very vulnerable, as Russian troops would have remained in place and Kyiv would have had no way to defend itself or seek security support from the West. Kyiv would have had to pay for the restoration of Donbas, — writes Radio Liberty.
In addition, documents from the next stages of negotiations, including the draft agreements of March 17 and April 15, indicate that during the negotiations on some issues, the parties came closer together.
The negotiation process stalled at the end of 2022, when the parties argued over the main provisions of the draft agreement. At the same time, the Russian army retreated from northern Ukraine because it was unable to capture Kyiv or force Ukraine to capitulate.
