Putin's 'Sham Diplomacy' Ahead of Ukraine Invasion Revealed
Russia's first peace treaty to stop its full-scale invasion of Ukraine offered one-sided conditions that all but demanded Kyiv's total capitulation, it has been reported.
The revelations by investigative outlet Systema citing what it said was a draft agreement show Moscow's conduct in negotiations at the start of Vladimir Putin 's invasion. The former U.S. envoy to Moscow has described Moscow's negotiations before the war as "sham diplomacy."
Systema, a subsidiary of the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, said the findings, picked up by independent Russian media, highlighted the Russian president's true intentions for Ukraine and that negotiations were only paying lip service to stopping the conflict. Newsweek has emailed the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries for comment.
The Treaty on the Settlement of the Situation in Ukraine and Ukraine's Neutrality was handed to the Ukrainian delegation on March 7, 2022. Its series of demands included Kyiv cutting its army to a fifth of its size, reducing its fleet of ships, helicopters and tanks and banning it from weapons research.
Demands that Kyiv forego its claims on annexed Crimea and the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions were also in the six-page document whose release preceded by several months Russia's declaration that it had annexed Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
John J. Sullivan , who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia between February 2020 and September 2022, was involved in the flurry of diplomacy in the months leading up to the war, which he outlines in his book Midnight in Moscow.
He said that, while talks with the Russians started in the New Year of 2022, "it became clear that the Russians weren't negotiating."
The Russian officials who came to meetings "read from their notes and wouldn't vary from them. They weren't authorized to engage in any give and take. And that includes all the way up to [foreign minister of Russia Sergey] Lavrov," Sullivan told Newsweek in July.
"The Russians gave us two draft treaties, one for the United States and Russia and one for NATO and Russia," Sullivan said. "That was just sham diplomacy; they gave us Russian text, not translated and wanted to negotiate in 48 hours in Geneva," he said.
"It wasn't serious and the text had maximalist statements of what Russia wanted that no U.S. president could ever agree to," added Sullivan.
Revelations of the initial deal Russia had offered Ukraine comes amid concerns about how talks to end the war would play out, especially in the aftermath of a U.S. election campaign in which Donald Trump has said that he could end the conflict within a day.
"These earlier negotiations, when Kyiv was under direct assault of the Russian army, expose Putin's real agenda for this war," Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at London's Chatham House think tank, told Newsweek on Tuesday.
"He wants to anchor Ukraine in the Russian space, destroy all its sovereign capacity to defend itself, and erase its identity," she said.
Lutsevych added that the majority of Ukrainians support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 's decision to reject these demands. "They still believe Putin is after the destruction of sovereign Ukraine, so territorial concessions in exchange for peace is seen as a poisoned chalice deal."
Zelensky said last month that Moscow ending aerial attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure could be a starting point for talks.
He has presented a "Victory Plan," which includes an invitation to join NATO military alliance, beefing up Ukraine's defense capabilities and deterring Russia from any further aggression.
The text Systema got access to via a Ukrainian official stemmed from the sides' third round of talks in Belarus and only offered Ukraine a "ceasefire regime" and "measures to halt combat operations." There was no mention of Russian troops withdrawing from Ukraine; Moscow only committed to not occupying territory beyond what it controlled.
