Russia offered Ukraine 'peace agreement' that resembled demand for surrender in early 2022 – Radio Liberty

Journalists received the draft contract from a Ukrainian source "familiar with the progress of the negotiations, and a Russian source "close to the negotiations confirmed its authenticity."

Negotiations began on February 28, 2022. Some rounds were held in the physical presence of representatives of the parties, while others were held online.

The project entitled "Agreement on settlement of the situation in Ukraine and neutrality of Ukraine" is dated March 7, 2022. The contract was handed over to the Ukrainian delegation on March 7 during the third round of negotiations in Białowieża Forest in Belarus. This is the first known document outlining Russia's terms for a peace agreement after the start of the full-scale invasion.

According to the journalists, if the Ukrainian authorities agreed to these conditions, it would turn Ukraine into a puppet entity, with a fictitious neutral status, with a tiny, toothless army, without protection from NATO countries and without a chance to regain control over Crimea or Donbas, having to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in their entirety, as well as large territories that were still under the control of Kyiv at that time.

"The agreement proposed by Russia sheds light on Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, none of which he has publicly renounced and which, as he has repeatedly emphasized, he intends to achieve," the agency writes.

The March 2022 document contains six pages of the main contract 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), as well as the lifting of sanctions against Russia.

According to the draft agreement, Russia made the following demands:

• The project called for Ukraine to reduce its army to 50,000 people, including 1,500 officers.
• Ukraine was offered "not to develop, not to produce, not to buy and not to place on its territory missile weapons of any type of basing with a firing range of more than 250 km."
• In Russia's plans, Ukraine was supposed to "recognize the independence of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘republics’" — and within the administrative regions of Ukraine (as of February 24, 2022, Russia controlled only part of these regions and has not conquered them completely even now, at the end of 2024 ).
• Russia also demanded the lifting of all sanctions — both Ukrainian and international — and the withdrawal of all international lawsuits filed since 2014.
• It is Ukraine that was to bear the costs of restoring the infrastructure of Donbas, which has been destroyed since 2014.
• Russia insisted on giving the Russian language state status and restoring all property rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
• The authors of the project demanded "to cancel and no longer introduce any prohibitions of symbols associated in the states with the victory over Nazism", that is, in fact, to re-legalize Soviet and communist symbols in Ukraine. The document includes a list of Ukrainian laws, which the authors called examples of "Nazification and heroization of Nazism."

“The deal would leave Ukraine very vulnerable, as Russian troops would remain in place and Kyiv would have no way to defend itself or seek security support from the West. Kyiv would have to pay for the restoration of Donbas," writes Radio Liberty.

Documents from subsequent rounds of negotiations, including draft agreements dated March 17 and April 15, indicate that the parties had come closer on some issues during the negotiations.

However, the negotiation process stalled at the end of April 2022, as the parties argued over the main provisions of the draft agreement. At the same time, the Russian army retreated from the north of Ukraine, because it could not capture Kyiv or force Ukraine to surrender.

What are the currently known demands of Putin

Earlier, the Kremlin dictator claimed that he was not simply in favor of a "truce" or "ceasefire", but allegedly for the "complete end" of the war. According to him, for this, Ukraine needs to withdraw troops from four of its regions.

Before that, he demanded Ukraine's refusal to join NATO and international recognition of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson oblasts and Crimea as Russian territories.

Other conditions included "demilitarization and denazification" and the lifting of all Western sanctions against Russia.