On May 16, Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks since the first months of the former’s invasion. Despite the pessimistic evaluation by Ukrainian and European leaders, the return to diplomacy is itself a major achievement and step forward. The talks lasted an hour and forty minutes.
Western leaders and Western media have given the first round of talks a failing grade. They have dismissed it for three reasons. They claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin first suggested direct negotiations and then did not show. They claim that he sent an insultingly low-level delegation. And they claim that nothing was accomplished.
All three of these claims are false.
Putin did suggest direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but he did not say that those talks would take place at the leadership level. Putin said, “We are proposing that Kiev resume direct negotiations without any preconditions…We offer the Kiev authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul.” Putin referred to the Kiev authorities and never to the two presidents.
It was unlikely that Russia would resume talks for the first time at the presidential level. Customarily, before presidents meet, a great deal of preparation and negotiation takes place at lower levels. Then, typically, the foreign ministers would meet to iron out most of the details prior to a presidential meeting.
It is also misleading to present the meeting as Putin not showing up while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did. Zelensky did arrive in Turkey, but he declined to agree to direct talks with Putin unless Putin first agreed to a thirty-day ceasefire, posting that “We expect Russia to confirm a ceasefire – full, lasting, and reliable – starting tomorrow, May 12th, and Ukraine is ready to meet.” Ukraine’s Head of the office of President, Andriy Yermak, confirmed, “First a ceasefire for 30 days, then everything else.” According to White House officials, Trump “never agreed” that that a ceasefire was a precondition to the direct talks.
But Zelensky’s precondition was an annulment. Russia was never going to agree to a ceasefire prior to negotiations for two reasons. First, they do not want a ceasefire empty of a settlement because that would maintain the conditions that would likely lead to future war, as happened in the ceasefire in Donbas from the end of the coup in 2014 to the start of the war in 2022. Second, they do not want a ceasefire without a settlement that would allow Ukraine to rest, regroup, rearm and dig trenches simply to return to war thirty days later like the Minsk deception that stung Russia earlier.
Russia has insisted that these negotiations resolve the “root causes” of the war. The Western media continues to deceptively define that insistence as the determination to deflate Ukraine’s sovereignty and calls it a delaying tactic. There is nothing on the historical record to suggest that Putin has ever identified that as a root cause of the war. Russia has always identified the root causes of the war as NATO’s encroachment toward their border and into Ukraine and the need for the protection of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
The security proposal that Russia presented to the United States and NATO in December 2021 in the days before the war had as its central point that NATO not expand to Ukraine. Then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has confirmed that the “promise [of] no more NATO enlargement…was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine.” Ukraine’s chief negotiator in the Belarus and Istanbul talks with Russia has also said that stopping NATO from expanding to Ukraine and Russia’s borders was the “key point” for Russia and that “[e]verything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’” Zelensky, himself, has said that the promise not to join NATO “was the first fundamental point for the Russian Federation” and that “as far as I remember, they started a war because of this.”
Russia is not asking for something unimaginable or new. They are asking for what they were promised. Not only did NATO promise to stay out of Ukraine, but Ukraine promised to stay out of NATO. Article IX of the 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine says that Ukraine “solemnly declares its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs…” That promise was later enshrined in Ukraine’s constitution, which committed Ukraine to neutrality and prohibited it from joining any military alliance: that included NATO.
Russia is not going to agree to a ceasefire without resolving this root cause of the war for the same reason that it went to war to resolve it.
The second reason for giving the first round of direct talks a failing grade is that Putin sent an insultingly low-level delegation. This is not only unfair for the reasons already discussed—that initial talks are usually conducted at a low level—but also because it ignores who Putin sent to conduct the talks. The Russian delegation is led by Vladimir Medinsky, the same person who led the Istanbul talks at the beginning of the war. Those talks nearly succeeded, and the nomination of Medinsky is a signal both that Russia is serious and that Russia sees the current round of talks as a continuation of the previous round. Putin said, “It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kiev. Nevertheless, we are proposing that Kiev resume direct negotiations without any preconditions.”
The third reason is that nothing of substance was accomplished. That, too, is untrue. The very resumption of direct talks is a major breakthrough. But, beyond that, some things of substance were accomplished.
The first is an agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each. Though prisoner exchanges have occurred during the war, this would be the largest exchange agreed to yet. It may also represent a goodwill gesture on the part of Russia, since it has been suggested in the Ukrainian press that Ukraine may not have 1,000 Russian prisoners of war.
The second is that the two sides each agreed to present a detailed document on its vision for a ceasefire. This is a significant achievement for a first round of talks.
The third is that, once the documents are presented and discussed, Medinsky said that “we think it will be reasonable to continue our negotiations.” Agreeing on a second round of talks is another positive and significant achievement.
Undercutting the negative assessment of Western officials and Western media, the Ukrainian delegation told The Washington Post that, “despite the heated exchanges…the talks eventually became constructive.” The Russian delegation agreed that they were “satisfied” with the first meeting.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the next round of talks could take place in mid-June, though their location is in doubt. Originally reported to be taking place in the Vatican, the Kremlin has suggested that the Vatican may not be the ideal location for two Orthodox Christian nations.
For the next round to get past the “heated exchanges” and continue to progress, key compromises will need to be made by both sides. Ukraine will have to agree not to join NATO. This is a big concession but should not be a deal breaker. Russia was promised this at the end of the Cold War, and Ukraine agreed to it during the Istanbul talks at the beginning of the war. If it was acceptable to Ukraine then, it should not be a fatal obstacle now.
In return, Russia will have to agree to real security guarantees for Ukraine. They will not agree to NATO nations as guarantors of the peace but could be open to countries from the Global South who have not sanctioned Russia or condemned its invasion of Ukraine but who also have not condoned it and would not want to see a ceasefire broken.
The West could agree to allow Ukraine to be armed, but not allow it to be armed with long-range weapons capable of striking Russia. The guarantors could agree to come to Ukraine’s aid if Russia breaks the ceasefire and attacks but not agree to come to Ukraine’s aid if they provoke Russia in hopes that they will come to Ukraine’s aid, much as China has been willing to promise Pakistan help if they are attacked but not if they irresponsibly cause the attack.
Both sides will need to make concessionary moves from their current territorial demands. Ukraine will never agree to Russia’s claim on more territory than it has conquered. Russia has hinted at some willingness to compromise on this. Russia will never agree to Ukraine’s demand to return territory to the prewar, or even pre-2014, borders. Ukrainian insistence on this condition for peace will guarantee that there will be no peace. And no peace will mean only that Ukraine will cede more territory to Russia. It is practical, then, for both sides to agree to negotiations beginning along the current line of conflict.
The recent return to direct talks between Russia and Ukraine can only be positive. And they accomplished more than the Western media and European leaders have suggested. Continued progress will require compromise and a genuine desire to build a peace that is workable and lasting.
