{"id":265586,"date":"2024-07-01T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=265586"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:19:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:19:51","slug":"new-evidence-us-blocked-ukraine-russia-peace-deal-and-a-new-ukrainian-excuse-for-walking-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/new-evidence-us-blocked-ukraine-russia-peace-deal-and-a-new-ukrainian-excuse-for-walking-away\/","title":{"rendered":"New Evidence US Blocked Ukraine-Russia Peace Deal, and a New Ukrainian Excuse for Walking Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Insider accounts and leaked documents show that Ukraine and Russia were close to a peace deal in April 2022, until “alarmed” US officials intervened. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Jun 2024 <\/em>– Since the collapse of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in April-May 2022, the Biden administration and establishment US media have maintained a near-total vow of silence.<\/p>\n

Even as Russian President Vladmir Putin has directly accused the US and UK of sabotaging the negotiations in Istanbul, President Biden and his top principals have never offered a rebuttal, and no major US outlet has bothered to seek one. The lone exception was an anonymous senior administration official, who told the Wall Street Journal\u2019s Yaroslav Trofimov<\/a> that Russian complaints were \u201cUtter bulls\u2014.\u201d The official added: \u201cI know for a fact the United States didn\u2019t pull the plug on that. We were watching it carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new article in the New York Times<\/a> ends the paper of record\u2019s self-imposed quiet. The Times has published a lengthy account of the Istanbul talks based on insider sources, including three Ukrainian negotiators, as well as leaked copies of draft treaties disclosed publicly for the first time. The Times\u2019 reporting underscores that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators made significant progress. It also offers new evidence that the Biden administration — notwithstanding a lone anonymous denial — stood in the way. Yet rather than acknowledge the West\u2019s role in blocking a peace deal, the Times offers up a dubious new excuse from the Ukrainian side for walking away.<\/p>\n

The Istanbul agreement, as summarized in a Ukrainian-authored document known as the Istanbul Communiqu\u00e9<\/a>, would have seen Ukraine accept permanent neutrality, rule out NATO membership, not host foreign military bases, and limit the size of its armed forces. In exchange, Russia would withdraw its military and pledge to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and security. The status of Crimea and Ukraine\u2019s eastern Donbas region would have been left to future negotiations.<\/p>\n

Yet rather than acknowledge that a peace deal was within reach, the Times downplays the progress that was made in Istanbul and adopts the NATO-Ukrainian narrative that Russia sought Kyiv\u2019s capitulation.<\/p>\n

As has become the norm in Western media since Russia\u2019s invasion, the Times minimizes Russian grievances about the influence of neo-Nazis and a crackdown on Russian culture inside Ukraine. According to the Times, Russia\u2019s proposed text \u201ctargeted Ukraine\u2019s national identity, including a ban on naming places after Ukrainian independence fighters.\u201d Yet turning to the actual source material<\/a>, we see that Russia asked Ukraine to ban \u201cthe glorification and propaganda in any form of Nazism and neo-Nazism, the Nazi movement and organizations associated therewith,\u201d including the naming of Ukrainian streets and memorials after Nazi collaborators. Unless the Times is now inadvertently adopting the Russian view that Ukraine is a Nazi state, Moscow\u2019s demands can hardly be seen as an affront to \u201cUkraine\u2019s national identity.\u201d With NATO states having sided with the numerically small but politically influential ultra-nationalist movement inside Ukraine \u2013 including the Azov battalion, which the Biden administration is now arming after lifting a longstanding ban<\/a> \u2013 a more accurate characterization is that Russia\u2019s proposed curbs on Nazism were an affront to a key Western ally.<\/p>\n

The Times confirms that the US did not like what it was hearing from Istanbul, and made it known. According to the Times, \u201cAmerican officials were alarmed at the terms\u201d of the proposed deal and relayed their concerns to the Ukrainians. A former senior US official recalled that in meetings with Ukrainian counterparts, the US characterized the deal as an act of surrender: \u201cWe quietly said, \u2018You understand this is unilateral disarmament, right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, much like seeking the de-glorification of Nazis, Russia\u2019s bid for permanent Ukrainian neutrality was not an outlandish demand. It was a request to revert to Ukraine\u2019s July 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty, which affirmed Ukraine\u2019s \u201cintention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs.\u201d This also happened to be the position of elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before he was ousted in the US-backed Maidan coup of February 2014, as well as the plurality if not majority opinion inside Ukraine over many years. As F. Stephen Larrabee, a former Soviet specialist on the U.S. National Security Council\u00a0wrote in 2011<\/a>, \u201cthe main obstacle\u201d to Ukraine’s ascension to NATO \u201cis not Russian opposition\u2026 but low public support for membership in Ukraine itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In seeking to override both Ukraine\u2019s founding constitution and popular opinion, the Biden administration was therefore not \u201calarmed\u201d that Ukraine\u2019s neutrality meant \u201cunilateral disarmament.\u201d Instead, it wanted to preserve the US-led militarization of Ukraine as a de-facto NATO proxy on Russia\u2019s border \u2013 a project that has led to Ukraine\u2019s unilateral decimation.<\/p>\n

The former US official also claimed that White House officials debated Putin\u2019s \u201cintentions\u201d, and questioned whether he was really interested in making peace. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know if Putin was serious. We couldn\u2019t tell, on either side of the fence, whether these people who were talking were empowered.\u201d Yet the same US official believed Putin was \u201csalivating\u201d at the prospect of peace. The Times also acknowledges that the Russian president appeared to be \u201cmicromanaging\u201d the talks from Moscow \u2013 which would seemingly bolster the case that he was indeed serious.<\/p>\n

Two Ukrainian negotiators also told the Times that they saw the Russians as serious, with one noting that Putin \u201creduced his demands\u201d over time. For example, after initially insisting that Ukraine recognize Crimea \u201cas an integral part of the Russian Federation,\u201d Moscow dropped that request.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, as Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Chalyi later admitted, the two sides \u201cmanaged to find a very real compromise\u201d and \u201cwere very close in the middle of April 2022… to finalize the war with some peace settlement.\u201d Putin, he said, \u201ctried to do everything possible to conclude [an] agreement with Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two sides indeed made so much progress that the Istanbul Communiqu\u00e9\u2019s final item foresees the possibility of convening a meeting \u201cbetween the presidents of Ukraine and Russia with the aim of signing an agreement and\/or making political decisions regarding the remaining unresolved issues.\u201d Two weeks later, a 16-page draft treaty (including six annexes), dated April 15th<\/sup>, made its way to Putin\u2019s desk. Yet according to the Times\u2019 newly introduced narrative, it was at this stage that a last-minute Russian maneuver sabotaged a deal.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed agreement, Ukraine\u2019s security would be assured by guarantor states, including the US and Russia. On this issue, outlined in Article 2, there was no dispute. But according to the Times, Moscow tried to add a clause in Article 5 concerning the guarantors\u2019 response in the event of an armed attack on Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Moscow proposed that if Ukraine were to be attacked, the guarantors would need to unanimously agree on any military response. In the Times\u2019 telling, this would mean that \u201cMoscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine\u2019s behalf \u2014 a seemingly absurd condition that Kyiv quickly identified as a dealbreaker.\u201d According to an unnamed Ukrainian official, Russia\u2019s proposed clause meant that \u201cwe had no interest in continuing the talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it would indeed be unfair for Russia to insist on the right to veto a defense against any future Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is no reason to assume that this \u201cseemingly<\/em> absurd condition\u201d was indeed its demand. (my emphasis)<\/p>\n

Article 2 of the draft treaty binds any guarantor state or party to the treaty \u2013 including Russia \u2013 \u201cto refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine, its sovereignty and independence, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.\u201d Accordingly, were Russia to flagrantly violate the treaty by invading Ukraine, it would have no grounds to invoke a different section of the treaty to prevent other states from responding to its attack. If one party violates a treaty — particularly its most fundamental provision — it cannot expect others to continue adhering to it. Therefore, if Russia were to attack Ukraine, it would not have right to stop someone else from responding.<\/p>\n

The Times-Ukrainian claim that this Russian proposal was a \u201cdealbreaker\u201d is not only dubious on its own, but contradicted by the available record. Despite the anonymous official\u2019s assertion that Ukraine \u201chad no interest in continuing the talks\u201d because of Russia\u2019s proposed amendment, the talks in fact continued beyond April 15th<\/sup> into the following month.<\/p>\n

Moreover, more than two years after the Ukrainians walked away from the Istanbul talks, they have now introduced this excuse about a Russian poison-pill for the first time. Previously, Ukrainian officials have claimed that they abandoned the talks over concerns that Moscow could not be trusted, particularly in light of the alleged Russian atrocities that surfaced in Bucha just as the Istanbul talks progressed.<\/p>\n

Yet in that case as well, the Russia-Ukraine talks continued even after the alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha were made public. As Zelensky argued forcefully at the time, only diplomacy could prevent the occurrence of future atrocities. Asked during an April 4th<\/sup>\u00a0visit to Bucha if the peace talks would continue,\u00a0the Ukrainian leader replied<\/a>: \u201cYes, because Ukraine must have peace.\u201d Zelensky reiterated that message the following day: \u201cEvery tragedy like this, every Bucha will affect negotiations. But we need to find opportunities for these steps.\u201d Reviewing the diplomatic record from that period, Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko note<\/a> that the two sides\u2019 work on the draft treaty \u201ccontinued and even intensified in the days and weeks after\u201d the Bucha allegations surfaced, suggesting that they \u201cwere a secondary factor in Kyiv\u2019s decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main factor in Ukraine\u2019s decision-making, therefore, was almost certainty the message that Zelensky\u2019s camp revealed in May 2022<\/a>: the previous month, just as the Istanbul talks were advancing, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid a visit to inform Zelensky that the West did not support a peace deal with Russia, and that the Ukrainians should \u201ckeep fighting\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

The Times, conveniently, does not mention Johnson\u2019s visit, nor the West\u2019s open refusal<\/a> to provide the security guarantees that Kyiv sought<\/a> to underpin an agreement with Russia. Just as NATO proxy warriors have not been prepared to accept a neutral Ukraine in exchange for peace, US establishment media is not yet prepared to acknowledge their decisive role in sabotaging an early opportunity to end the war.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aaron Mat\u00e9 is a journalist with<\/em> The Grayzone, where he hosts<\/em> \u201cPushback.\u201d He is also a contributor to<\/em> Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of<\/em> \u201cUseful Idiots.\u201d In 2019, Mat\u00e9 won the\u00a0Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in<\/em> The Nation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aaronmate.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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