Ukraine’s delegation earlier this week agreed to give up its Nato aspirations as long as the West were to offer it security guarantees.
ByNataliya Vasilyeva, RUSSIA CORRESPONDENT 3 April 2022 •

One of Ukraine’s negotiators in peace talks with Russia says Moscow has agreed to almost all of their proposals, paving the way to a possible meeting between the leaders of the countries.
The Ukrainian delegation at the talks in Istanbul earlier this week agreed to give up its ambition to join Nato. But they asked for other countries to guarantee its future security as a condition to making concessions to Russia, as the ferocious invasion of Ukraine enters its sixth week.
Kyiv also proposed to set a 15-year timeframe for discussing the legal status of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014.
David Arakhamia, one of the Ukrainian officials who was negotiating with the Russians in Istanbul, said late on Saturday that his Russian counterparts had verbally agreed to all but one proposal laid out by his team.
“The Russian Federation has given an official answer to all of our proposals, which is that they accept the (Ukrainian) position, except for the issue of Crimea,” Mr Arakhamia said on Ukrainian television.
The Russian reaction gives him hope that Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, would meet for talks soon to hammer out a possible peace deal.
“Our goal right now is to wrap up on the final stage of all the issues we have touched upon and lay the groundwork for a possible meeting of the presidents,” he added.
Speaking about the West offering Ukraine security guarantees as part of the deal, Mr Arakhamia said he has a “feeling that the US and the UK will be the last to join when they see that others agree”.
Russia’s chief negotiator did not refute Mr Arakhamia’s statement altogether on Sunday, but sought to make it look like it was Ukraine that accepted Russia’s demands, not the other way round.
“The Ukrainian delegation has become more realistic on the issues concerning Ukraine’s neutral and non-nuclear status, but the draft agreement is not ready yet for the top-level meeting,” Vladimir Medinsky said in his blog, commenting on a possible meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
He added that the proposals that Ukraine has agreed to were “exactly what Russia has been seeking since 2014”.
He said talks on the draft peace deal will continue via a video link on Monday.
Comments from Telegraph readers :
Irene DelPino
“I hope they reach peace and end all this terrible destruction; that Mr Putin finds his own eternal punishment, and that the war crimes are pursued. Russia should continue to be kept apart from the civilized world.”
Nomen Nesci
“Do the negotiations include Russian reparations (Trillions?) for rebuilding Ukraine and compensating Ukrainian families for their suffering, at the hands of the murderous and barbaric Russian invaders?”
David Rasmussen
“It’s hard to imagine the extreme difficulty faced by the Ukrainian side while the Soviets continue to murder, rape and destroy their country!
How can we continue to Watch from the sidelines, they are a neighbor!
The analogy of the Roman gladiator spectacles, and, WE ARE THE SPECTATORS!”
And A Troll writes :
Stefan Must
“Basically, it looks like Ukraine fought a war with Russia for absoutely NOTHING. Ukraine called Russia’s bluff thinking it would NOT invade…Now Russia has virtually destroyed all infrastructure, created 2 million refugees and 20k deaths, and NATO has said it wouldn’t intervene,
NOW Zelensky is left by himself and pondering WHAT A MASSIVE MISTAKE to call out a superpower.
What a waste of life and money. .the Ukrainian president is a disgrace.”
My reply to this verminous trash was : “Putler jackboot lickers are annoying in peacetime. In wartime they are acting as components of the little poisoner’s war machine. Find them and lock them up.”
As we have seen, Russia is no superpower.
“The Ukrainian delegation has become more realistic on the issues concerning Ukraine’s neutral and non-nuclear status, but the draft agreement is not ready yet for the top-level meeting,”
The demands have zero to do with what mafia land wanted to accomplish. Bottom line, mafia land agrees notwithstanding because they are getting their asses fried by Ukraine.
I get the impression Ukraine capitulated. They’re giving up the CB land, reorrstions, trials for the war crimes. I hope I’ve misunderstood
A deal with Putin is like a deal with Al Capone. They do not have honor and they consider it a weakness. I admire the attempts but only a fool would put ANY stock in a deal with the devil.