Reuters reports that this is the agreement to which the Russians have concurred and which President Trump will be selling to Zelensky and the Europeans today:
Reuters publishes Putin’s proposals on Ukraine, presented to Trump at the summit:
- No ceasefire is planned before signing a full agreement.
- The Armed Forces of Ukraine will withdraw from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
- Russia will freeze the front lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
- Return control of areas in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions to Ukraine.
- Formal recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea.
- Cancellation of at least part of the sanctions against Russia.
- Ukraine will be prohibited from joining NATO.
- Putin seems to have been open to Ukraine receiving certain security guarantees.
- Official status of the Russian language in some parts of Ukraine or throughout Ukraine, as well as the rights of the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely.
But Simplicius is, in my opinion, correct to be very skeptical that this is an accurate report.
This, if true, would obviously be a huge departure from Russia’s earlier demands. It is difficult to believe, however, because Putin already signed both Zaporozhye and Kherson at their administrative borders into the Russian constitution, and thus there is no real mechanism of abandoning those uncaptured portions.
There are a variety of angles to this. Firstly, recall that media ‘reports’ about claimed Russian concessions have been proven fake every previous time. We went through it repeatedly: a media claim is made that Putin is ready to ‘concede’, and soon after a high ranking Russian official states that all previous ‘Istanbul plus’ demands are still in place…
The only logical explanation is the above: that Russia knows no agreement can ever be reached anyway, and is thus playing for time by pretending at concessions to affect the peacemaker and transfer responsibility on Ukraine and Europe. Why can’t it be reached? Zelensky himself again just stated no uncaptured land can be ceded, as it is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution. Previously, he’s stated many times that demilitarization is definitely out, also. Now, European “partners” have again reiterated their intent to immediately station troops on Ukraine’s territory upon the cessation of hostilities.
Personally, I believe that the focus of both the USA and Russia is extricating the former from its obligations to assist Ukraine. Once the US is out of the picture, Russia can easily handle the EU-Ukraine alliance by launching new offensives and forcing the surrender on whatever terms it requires. But in order to get the USA out of the picture, there needs to be an agreement on the table to which the US can agree and to which Ukraine will not.