By Reuters
May 12, 2025
A municipal worker stands in front of an apartment building heavily damaged a day before, by a Russian air strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 8, 2025. Iryna Rybakova/Press Service of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS
May 12 (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine may be on the point of holding peace talks for the first time since the early weeks of the war.
Here is a short guide to what was on the table back in 2022, the last time the two countries held peace talks, and why those talks broke down.
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WHERE AND WHEN DID NEGOTIATIONS TAKE PLACE?
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Belarus on February 28, 2022, four days after Russia’s full-scale invasion. They later held meetings by video link before meeting again in person in Istanbul on March 29. After that they exchanged multiple drafts until mid-April, before the talks broke down.
WHAT WAS DISCUSSED?
– According to draft documents, opens new tab published last year by the New York Times, Ukraine was prepared to become a permanently neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free state, with no foreign troops or weapons on its soil. These terms would have barred it from joining NATO but allowed for the possibility of EU membership.
– In return, Ukraine would have received security guarantees from a group of countries including the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Britain, China, Russia, the United States and France.
– A partially agreed draft said the guarantor states – including Russia – would respect and observe Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty and refrain from the threat or use of force against it.
– The draft proposed holding talks over a period of 10-15 years regarding the status of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
WHAT WERE THE KEY POINTS OF DISAGREEMENT?
– If Ukraine was attacked, it wanted the guarantors to provide assistance that could include “closing airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state”. But Russia insisted any decision must be agreed by all guarantor states – meaning Moscow would have a veto.
– The two sides disagreed sharply on the future size of Ukraine’s armed forces and its military arsenal. For example, Kyiv was ready to agree to cap the size of its forces at 250,000, with 800 tanks and a maximum missile firing range of 280 km (174 miles). Russia was demanding limits on Ukraine of 85,000 personnel, 342 tanks and a 40 km missile range.
– Moscow demanded that Ukraine recognise Russian as an official state language and end what it considers to be discrimination against Russian-speakers, something Ukraine denies.
– Russia demanded the repeal of what it called “laws of Ukraine on Nazification and glorification of Nazism”. Ukraine rejects the Nazism charge as absurd.
WHY DID THE TALKS BREAK DOWN?
By April 2022, the situation on the battlefield appeared to be turning in Ukraine’s favour. It had beaten back Russian forces from around Kyiv and shown evidence to the world of alleged Russian war crimes that provoked international condemnation, although Moscow denied them.
Western countries were scaling up military aid to Kyiv and escalating sanctions on Moscow – all factors that made Ukraine less inclined to accede to Russian demands, according to a detailed account, opens new tab of the peace talks in the journal Foreign Affairs by historian Sergey Radchenko and analyst Samuel Charap.
ARE THE 2022 DRAFTS STILL RELEVANT?
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said in February that the so-called Istanbul protocols offered “guideposts” for negotiations between the warring sides.
A Kremlin aide said on Sunday that the peace talks being proposed now should take into account the 2022 negotiations and the fact that Russia now controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in December 2024 that there were no “Istanbul agreements”, only talks in which Ukraine had responded to an “ultimatum” by Russia but did not sign anything.
WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE THE FAILED TALKS?
The original negotiations were focused mainly on sovereignty issues, but Russia’s stance has hardened since then to include specific demands on territory. President Vladimir Putin said in June 2024 that Ukraine must withdraw entirely from four regions of the country – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – that Russia has claimed as its own but only partly controls.
Ukraine says it will never legally recognise Russian occupation of Ukrainian land. At the same time, Zelenskiy has acknowledged that his forces are unable at this point to take back all the lost territory and that it may be recovered over time by diplomatic means.
Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London Editing by Gareth Jones
………….
We didn’t have the balls to fully back Ukraine under Joe Biden, says Boris Johnson
Johnson, who was U.K. PM when Russia invaded Ukraine, criticized the West’s Biden-era approach — and said Trump can do better.
Boris Johnson was in office in the U.K. during Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. | Andy Rain/EPA-EFE
MAY 13, 2025
BY MATT HONEYCOMBE-FOSTER, GORDON REPINSKI AND CSONGOR KÖRÖMI
Western politicians in the era of Joe Biden didn’t have “the balls” to fully back Ukraine, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday.
Speaking to POLITICO at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Johnson said U.S. President Donald Trump deserved credit for sending lethal assistance to Ukraine during his first term in 2018 — even as he expressed fears about the direction of current peace talks with Russia.
“With all the complaints we may have now about [Trump’s] position, I just observe two things: you know, first of all, under Joe [Biden] and from the previous two years, whatever you’d say about what the West was doing, we were just about stopping the Ukrainians from losing,” Johnson told POLITICO Berlin Playbook’s Gordon Repinski in an interview. “But we never had the balls to give them what they needed actually.”
“The second thing I’ve always noted was that actually it was Trump back in 2018 who gave them the Javelin … missiles, and Trump broke the taboo on giving Ukrainians lethal weapons, which the Democrats have not done,” he added.
Trump in his second term has upended European military policy by slashing aid to Ukraine and casting doubt on whether the United States would honor its NATO commitments to defend a fellow member were it attacked by Russia.
He has signed a minerals deal aimed at seeing Kyiv pay back aid given to by the U.S. under Biden, embarrassed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House and shown a growing closeness with Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
Johnson, when asked about claiming in the past that Trump would be “strong and decisive” on Ukraine, said: “Leaders like President Trump listen to lots of different voices before making up their mind,” adding: “I’m anxious, but I don’t think that Donald Trump’s instinct will be to let Ukraine be crushed. And I don’t think that he has the political space to allow it to happen.”
Johnson — who has lobbied hard for U.S. Republicans to stay the course in supporting Ukraine and insisted European fears about Donald Trump’s Ukraine strategy are overblown — said: “I have always thought that if we can get peace through strength in Ukraine, then Trump — for all the criticisms people make of him — Trump can actually deliver.”
‘No real pressure’ on Russia
Johnson was in office in the U.K. during Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has remained a staunch ally of Kyiv. He said Tuesday that talks between the two sides were now at a “very crucial moment,” with Ukraine “pushed into a corner” and asked to accept concessions on land and not taking up NATO membership that amount to an “awful lot.”
“The Russians have been placed under no real pressure so far, and everybody can see that and I think what’s happening now in Washington, I hope, is that people are finally recognizing that Putin doesn’t want it [peace],” Johnson said.
The former British PM said he feared a “very dangerous” conclusion to the war “on Putin’s terms,” whereby the Russian president delivers a ceasefire and wins an end to U.S. arming of Ukraine and a promise the country will not join NATO.
“[What] I worry about is that people will say: We’ll stop there. We’ll stop the killing and the president will be able to tell himself that is a success.
“But of course it will be an utter, utter disaster, because Putin would remain in a position to destabilize Ukraine. And, of course, to launch another invasion. I’m actually very anxious about it.”
Ukraine was in a much stronger position then than it is now. So what possible benefit is this Zel-putler meeting (if it happens) to Ukraine, other than paying lip-service to Trump’s pro-russia administration?
No one believes putler will make any meaningful concessions; the dwarf nazi will just put out another set of impossible demands.
The reasons for Ukraine’s abysmal situation now is due to the failure of its allies to deliver sufficient support. General Zaluzhnyi presented a very modest “shopping list” in 2022. Only 20% was delivered and since then Ukraine has had to get by with only 20% of what it needed.
A catastrophic blow which Ukraine never recovered from was the Trump-engineered aid block, which caused the needless death of many thousands of Ukrainian servicemen and civilians.
It was one of the most shameful episodes of American history. That is, until the hideous ambush of Zel by Trump-Vance in the Oval Office, which triggered another aid block that led to Ukraine losing its advantage in Kursk.
Those who think that the ghastly Kellogg is on Ukraine’s side are hopelessly wrong :
“Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, says Ukrainians brought the pause in U.S. intelligence sharing “on themselves.”
“It’s “sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” Kellogg said of the impact of the intelligence pause on the battlefield. “Got their attention.”
Source :
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/envoy-compares-ukraine-intel-sharing-pause-to-hitting-a-mule-with-a-two-by-four/ar-AA1ApG2T
“Ukraine was in a much stronger position then than it is now.”
I beg to differ. Ukraine has since then been given many weapons and munitions it could only dream of back then. It also has built up a powerful drone army and vastly improved its EW capabilities. It has gained almost a parity in artillery.
In the meantime, mafia land’s capabilities have been cut down to pieces. It has been reduced to using ancient and ridiculous vehicles, as is constantly reported. it also has achieved zero in increasing its capabilities in leadership or troop training.
I should clarify that I meant negotiating position. The demands of putler then were of course ridiculous, but incredibly, emboldened by assholes like Witless, the putinaZis have actually increased those demands.
They know that Ukraine cannot rely on Trump and are confident that the EU will not replace the US supply capabilities.
putler will go on until he’s dead or defeated.
“putler will go on until he’s dead or defeated.”
Those two possibilities go hand-in-hand.
There are no “peace terms” that putler would agree to that Ukraine could live with. Not even close.
One side has to win, in order to end the horror. Unfortunately Ukraine has no foul weather friends, so will be pressured into accepting terms that reward child-murdering scum.
The Ukrainian people will have to decide whether they want to carry on the fight, but as usual with hopelessly inadequate support, or to put themselves in a vulnerable position that leaves them open to yet another ruZZian genocide.
To put it in a nutshell, no agreement is ever worth the paper that it is written on. This should be a given. Only a military defeat, a complete economic breakdown, or political collapse will bring lasting peace.
Agreements are toilet paper with writing on them.