Ukraine and Russia make progress on plan to end war – EURACTIV

A fifteen-point draft deal between Russia and Ukraine, reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday (16 March), would involve Kyiv renouncing NATO membership ambitions and accepting territorial changes, in return for security guarantees.

According to the FT, who based their report on three people involved in the talks, Ukraine and Russia have made significant progress on a tentative 15-point peace plan including a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal if Kyiv declares neutrality and accepts limits on its armed forces.

The proposed deal, which Ukrainian and Russian negotiators reportedly discussed in full for the first time on Monday (14 March), would involve Kyiv renouncing its ambitions to join NATO and promising not to host foreign military bases or weaponry in exchange for protection from allies such as the US, UK, and Turkey, the sources said.

The nature of Western guarantees for Ukrainian security and their acceptability to Moscow could yet prove to be a big obstacle to any deal.

But the biggest sticking point reportedly remains Russias demand that Ukraine recognise Moscows sovereignty over Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and the independence of the two Russia-controlled so-called republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that peace negotiations must lead to a fair deal for Ukraine that would include reliable security guarantees protecting it from future threats.

We can and must fight today, now. We can and must defend our state, our life, our Ukrainian life. We can and must negotiate a just but fair peace for Ukraine, real security guarantees that will work, he said in a video address.

Ukraine has had a troublesome experience with security guarantees in recent history.

The so-called Budapest memorandum of 1991 prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, in exchange for Kyiv giving up the Soviet nuclear arsenal based on its soil.

That memorandum, however, did not prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022, nor did it ensure meaningful support from the UK and the US.

The Kremlin said for its part on Wednesday that a neutral Ukraine, with its own army along the lines of Austria or Sweden, was being looked at as a possible compromise in talks with Kyiv.

This is a variant that is currently being discussed and which could really be seen as a compromise, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA news agency on day 21 of what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine, which has so far killed thousands and turned three million Ukrainians into refugees.

Peskov was commenting on remarks from Vladimir Medinsky, Russias chief negotiator, who earlier told state TV: Ukraine is offering an Austrian or Swedish version of a neutral demilitarized state, but at the same time a state with its own army and navy.

Russias Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that absolutely specific wordings were close to being agreed in the negotiations.

Ending the war is as much in the interest of Ukraine, whose population has suffered shocking atrocities, as it is for Russia, which has struggled with its military campaign and has become an international pariah, under crippling sanctions and close to defaulting on its international debt.

It is unclear if the lifting of Western sanctions is part of the peace plan.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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Ukraine and Russia make progress on plan to end war - EURACTIV