The Financial Times reported on Monday that as part of ongoing ceasefire negotiations, Russia is prepared to let Ukraine pursue EU membership as long as Kyiv drops its plans to join NATO.
The report cited four anonymous people briefed on the negotiations who said under a draft deal aimed at ending the fighting, Ukraine would vow not to join NATO, not to host foreign military bases, and not develop nuclear weapons. In exchange, Ukraine would get security guarantees and Russia wouldn’t block its bid to join the EU.
The sources said the deal does not include three of Russia’s earlier demands; “denazification,” demilitarization, and protections for Russian-speaking people inside Ukraine.
The report said that the draft deal would leave two other major Russian demands — Ukraine’s recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and the independence of the Donbas republics — to be worked out in a tentative future meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Officials from Ukraine and Russia are set to meet in Istanbul on Tuesday for in-person talks after over a week of holding negotiations via video link. While the Financial Times report says a draft deal is in the works, negotiators from both sides are cautioning against the idea that a breakthrough will be made.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia wouldn’t discuss progress publicly because it could hamper negotiations. “For now, unfortunately, we cannot speak of any significant achievements and breakthroughs,” he said.
David Arakhamia, a member of Ukraine’s negotiating team, told the Financial Times that the two sides were close to a deal on EU membership and security guarantees, but also warned against the idea of a breakthrough.
Arakhamia claimed that the security guarantee Ukraine would get under the draft deal would be close to the wording of NATO’s Article 5. He said that Ukraine would get such a guarantee from Russia, the US, China, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Israel, and Turkey. But it’s hard to believe that Russia would accept such a deal, and each guarantor would have to agree to what is essentially a mutual defense treaty with Ukraine.
“The only resolved [issue] is the type of international guarantees Ukraine is looking for, but … we still have to get the approval from the guarantors otherwise the deal will never fly,” Arakhamia said. Zelensky said Sunday that any deal with Russia would be put to a referendum before Ukraine would change its constitution.
So really, at this stage this is half a deal at best – settling the NATO issue but then awaiting territorial and denazification issues…. More dawdling really
Zelensky (U.S.) is stalling. The idea is to stall, train more mercenaries, ship more weapons, ammo, into Ukraine. If Zelensky has to bail, he will head to his mansion in South Florida, or his estate in Italy, or where his $1.2 billion is parked; Costa Rica.
Ukraine is a sovereign country. They can join any organization they want. They are not a slave country like Belarus.
Sure. But NATO is not obligated to take them. It is not necessary to threaten Russia. And yes, it is a threat to Russia. See for example Australia’s response to China in the Solomon Islands in today’s paper.
The threat to Russia. This is from the site GoldSilver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6hIlfHWaGU
Says the guy whose country still adheres to Monroe doctrine.
BTW after hearing Solomon Island is in negotiation for adefense deal with China Australia criticized Island said theis part of the neighborhood can be protected by the countries within the neighborhood and si shouldn’t do this deal.
Ukraine is not a sovereign country. It takes its orders from us, with the idiot marionette, Zelensky, the actor/comedienne the mouthpiece. It was an interesting revelation about Zelensky’s $35 million mansion in South Florida, his place in Italy, and, $1.2 billion in a bank in Cost Rica. They make a big deal of him being Jewish. Hah! He has supported the Azov Battalion, been OK with the shelling of fellow Ukrainians in the East of Ukraine. Ukraine is a corrupt, poor country. That $1.2 billion could help the poor in Ukraine.
Phony report. Russia will not accept “security guarantees” from the EU – that’s the same as NATO. If they meant “security guarantees” from Russia, that’s not going to happen either if demilitarization and deNazification doesn’t occur.
Yes, Russia knows Nazis. It’s inconceivable they’d again tolerate them for a neighbor. The US modus operandi is to partner with these types, Mujahadin, al Qaeda, al Nusrah, as shock troops for regime change.
I have had the impression since 2014 that Russia doesn’t really want Ukraine. They want Crimea and Donbas. If Ukraine agrees to that, along with an enforceable measure of neutrality and demilitarization, Russia might be tempted.
Back in 2014, that was true. No longer. The only way to enforce neutrality is for Russia to reorganize the Ukrainian government. Plus Russia probably intends to put strategic missiles inside Ukraine and that requires control of the entire country, since the missiles need to be as far west as possible. Russia has not said this, it’s true, but this is a logical outcome of the “military-technical measures” they promised last year.
The guarantees amount to entry into NATO. That is what Russia said it is fighting to prevent. Therefore, this is just not true.
“When you vote (or negotiate or send in your troops) , you are exercising political authority, you’re using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.” Robert A. Heinlein
Zelenski sent President Putin a message that he would consider being neutral. President Putin responded “Tell him I will thrash
them,” This is negotiations from strength, something the Ivy League
androgynous woke green diversity ESG eunuchs do not understand. This is
something that Biden and his Ivy League clowns cannot conceive.
When the sacking of Rome happened on 24 August 410 AD the city counsel sent out the eunuchs to offer the Visigoths led by their king Alaric
gold and silver to leave. This had worked for many years prior.
Instead of agreeing King Alaric sent the heads of the eunuchs back in to
Rome minus their bodies. They politicians didn’t know what to do so
they opened the gates. The Visigoths entered Rome through its Salarian Gate and pillaged the city for three days.
Being half German, half Kievan Rus
and all Northern European I understand, in a visceral way, marshal use
of force. We now have a ringside seat to a leader who rules by Force.
When President Putin sent his red line to Joe Biden and Jens Stoltenberg
of NATO it was simple. He wanted Ukraine as a neutral country, NATO
cease expanding into Ukraine and Georgia, and prosecution of Fascist
like the Azov Battalion that murdered 13,000 ethnic Russians in Easter
Ukraine.
These negotiation items were dismissed without
a thought. The items were a red line for President Putin. The woke
ESG (World Economic Forum) crowd had no idea that these items were a
serious trip wire.
We now get to sit back and watch as a man of
force and action makes his moves. It is history in the making as
interesting as all the great empire and warfare stories going back
beyond the Roman Empire to Gilgamesh the legendary warrior king of Sumeria and Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
You will hear; this is the year 2022, we are
in the 21st century we are beyond this. President Putin is a man of the
19th or 20th century and so outdated.
In the new high tech virtual world real fighting and force are
inconceivable. First World young only fight in video games without
their real bodies, mostly.
We are military men and know that as the first
world (America and NATO) projected us into the third world to fight it
is conceivable that the first world may one day enter into the naked use
of force.
As Putin the judo master knows well, misdirected force can be easily channeled back to hurt the more powerful side. It’s not about raw force; it’s about judicious use of power calibrated to achieve political aims in the short run … in the long run, soft power wins every single time. Those barbarians you mentioned settled down and became Romans later.
Positioning and narrative building, for home and foreign propaganda purposes …
I assume Ukraine would like to join the EU. But I’m not at all sure the EU wants to bring them in.
Russia has never, not by word or deed, shown any resistance or problem with Ukraine joining the EU or any trade/political alliance.
Russia welcomes trade, fair exchange or barter. It’s only problem is with the coercion by force and threat of force. It is happy to deal with the EU and has / had large volume of trade with members of the EU.
Ukraine showed itself to be a thief and unreliable partner in trade with the theft of millions of dollars of gas and oil.
Russia’s only problems are with the CIA based NGOs and with the CIA based ‘colour revolutions’ and with Nuclear weapons within minutes of striking Moscow.
Since 1990, the USA has paid murders to harass and kill millions of Russian speaking people in the countries adjacent to Russia. All the Balkans, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova and more. This kind of harassment and persecution of the Poles against the German speaking residents of Poland (on land stolen by the Treaty of Versailles) was what kicked off the second world war. The persecution of the Serbs by the Austria-Hungarians caused the first world war and now the persecution of Russians is going to cause the third.
South America, South Island New Zealand and Southern Africa are good places to be while the insanity and stupidity cause devastation in the North. If the Nukes don’t get you (as in not used) then the economic fallout will.
Russia did respond to the EU trade agreement offer to Ukraine in 2014 by offering one of their own. It was considerably better than the EU offer. I take that as an indication that Russia was opposed to having Ukraine join the EU. But I agree that it wasn’t coercion.
Yanukovych signed the deal with Russia. The Euromaidan riots started about a week later.
Well- this sounds like a reasonable compromise to one American
Guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality, pull your stupid idiotic inept army back to where it started, and forget about ever keeping Ukraine as a part of your big, old, dead “Mother Russia”again and everybody might be happy. Of course now you have some explaining to do to the surviving veterans, and the parents of those who didn’t, but hey, you’re good at cooking up stories.
Feb 19, 2019 — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union.