In the spring of 2022, Moscow promised to end the war against Ukraine if Kyiv agreed not to join NATO. The head of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations with Russian representatives, deputy David Arakhamia, spoke about this in interview TV channel “1+1”.
“For us to take neutrality was the biggest thing for them. They were ready to end the war if we took, like Finland once, neutrality and made a commitment that we would not join NATO,” Arakhamia said.
He emphasized that this was a key point, and the Russian delegation hoped “to the last” that it would “press” Ukraine until such an agreement was signed.
According to Arakhamia, the Ukrainian side refused the agreement for two reasons. Firstly, for this it was necessary to change the Constitution of the country, since it enshrines Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. Secondly, there is a lack of trust in the Russian side that it will fulfill the agreement – “this can only be done if there are security guarantees.”
Arakhamia also added that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who arrived in Kyiv at the time, advised Ukraine not to sign anything and “just fight.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Negotiations began a few days later, first in Belarus, then in Istanbul. In June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the leaders of African countries that following negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022, the “agreement on permanent neutrality and security guarantees for Ukraine” was initialed by Arakhamia, but then Kiev “threw it into the dustbin of history.” In response to this, Arakhamia in an interview asks why Putin did not publish this document: “If he had the document, he would have made it public.” Russian troops, after a round of negotiations in Istanbul at the end of March last year, were withdrawn from Kyiv and northern Ukraine. The Russian side interpreted this as a gesture of goodwill. The attack on Kyiv had stalled by the time the troops were withdrawn. Negotiations have been effectively suspended since May 2022. In November 2022, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky presented plan, consisting of ten points, known as the “peace formula”. In particular, it stipulates that any negotiations in Moscow can begin only after it returns all occupied territories, including the annexed Crimea, and the withdrawal of troops from all regions it occupied. Negotiations in person with Vladimir Putin are also prohibited in Ukraine by presidential decree.
2023-11-25 05:16:50
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