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Representatives from the warring nations held peace talks in the early weeks of the Russian invasion. They fizzled. Documents from those talks show why any new ones will face major obstacles.
www.nytimes.com
https://johnmenadue.com/nyt-confirms-war-ending-russian-ukraine-peace-agreement-sabotaged-by-west/
POLITICS
NYT confirms war-ending Russian-Ukraine peace agreement sabotaged by West
By
Gregory Clark
Jun 27, 2024
“We were very close in mid-April 2022 to finalising the war with a peace settlement,” one of the Ukrainian negotiators, Oleksandr Chalyi, stated at a public appearance a year later.
According to another negotiator speaking at the time “Putin and Zelenskiy surprised everyone with their mutual willingness to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war.”
Sadly, that end was not to be. According to Chalyi “instead of embracing the Istanbul Communiqué and the subsequent diplomatic process, the West ramped up military aid to Kyiv and increased the pressure on Russia, including through an ever-tightening sanctions regime.”
The perennially Russophobic United Kingdom took the lead with Boris Johnson arriving in Kyiv on April 9, even before the draft treaty was to be finalised. He reportedly told Zelenskiy that any deal, “would be some victory for [Putin]: if you give him anything, he’ll just keep it, bank it, and then prepare for his next assault.”
Ukraine’s top negotiator in Istanbul, David Arakhamia, has stated that Johnson traveled to Kiev specifically to persuade Vladimir Zelensky to withdraw from the talks.
Kiev was also under pressure from the US, which had long been doubtful about the talks and the guarantees it was supposed to provide.