Are peace negotiations with Russia possible? Experience of recent years

 

The intentions of the newly elected US President Donald Trump to end the war between Russia and Ukraine have renewed the debate on peace negotiations. At the same time, directly opposing approaches and assessments are manifested - from denying the very possibility of such negotiations to waiting for quick peace agreements. Therefore, it makes sense to analyze (at least briefly) the history of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine during the current war.

Namely, the experience of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine has existed since 2014, and is related to the negotiations on ending the war in Donbas. These were negotiations in the Normandy format (with the participation of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine), as well as negotiations on the conclusion and implementation of the first and second "Minsk agreements", which also took place with the participation of the OSCE. However, at that time Russia did not recognize itself as a party to the conflict and tried to act as a formal mediator. And the war then was local and hybrid, not full-scale, as it is now. However, the ambiguous experience of those negotiations (especially the ceasefire agreement) will affect future negotiations on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia, as then, can influence the negotiation process with military pressure. And in Ukraine they still remember the failure of the Minsk agreements and fear "Minsk-3".

 

Direct negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine began a few days after the Russian invasion. Their active phase (direct negotiations between official representatives of Russia and Ukraine) lasted about a month - until the end of March 2022. They continued inertly, in online mode, in April 2022, but without much hope for a concrete result. In late March - early April 2022, both sides were close to signing a peace agreement. The Ukrainian side presented the Concept of a Peace Agreement at the negotiations in Istanbul, which looked like a rather compromise approach. The Russian side later stated that the two sides even allegedly agreed on something, but there was no real confirmation of such agreements then, and there is none now.

Why did Russia and Ukraine not reach an agreement in March-April 2022. Mainly because the warring parties sought different goals in these negotiations. The Kremlin failed to capture Kiev in three days, but Russian troops were standing near Kiev, and Moscow hoped that during the negotiations it would be possible to force the Ukrainian leadership to actually capitulate and fulfill most of the Russian demands (change of power in Kiev, the so-called "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine, etc.). The Ukrainian army stopped the enemy near Kiev and Kharkiv, but it lacked weapons and ammunition, and it was not clear whether it would be possible to withstand Russian attacks for a long period of time. Therefore, the Ukrainian leadership was then ready for a broad compromise, in particular, to reject the desire for NATO membership in exchange for the cessation of hostilities with Russia and a return to the situation that existed until February 24, 2022. But for the Ukrainian state leadership, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as

for the majority of Ukrainians, even a semi-formal capitulation to Russia (that is, peace based on unilateral concessions by Ukraine that limit its sovereignty) was categorically unacceptable.

A theoretical chance for compromise existed at the end of March 2022 in Istanbul. However, Russia was not ready for compromise at that time. The Russian response to the Ukrainian proposals appeared (and only in a closed regime) only in the second half of April 2022, when the chance for compromise had already been lost. Incidentally, when Putin and Russian propaganda talk about the "Istanbul Peace Agreement", they refer to the Russian draft (precisely the draft) of the "peace treaty" of April 15, 2022, to which the Ukrainian side did not agree, because the Russians demanded unacceptable concessions from Ukraine, in particular a multiple reduction in the armed forces.

After the tragedies in Bucha and Irpen became known, the attitude towards negotiations with the Russian Federation changed sharply in a negative direction, both for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and for the majority of Ukrainians. The emotional and moral shock of these tragedies formed an extremely critical attitude of Ukrainians towards the very idea of compromise with the Russians. In addition, at that moment it became obvious that Ukraine was resisting the Russian onslaught, and Western partners began to help Kiev with weapons, material resources and money. Hopes for victory in the war against Russian aggression began to appear in Ukraine.

Although the official peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine actually ended in May 2022, there were periodic attempts to continue the negotiation process. And some such attempts brought a concrete result, but not in the peace process as such, but in resolving certain problematic issues related to the war between the two countries. Stories of the relative (sometimes temporary) success of the negotiations in 2022 became the Grain Agreement (“Black Sea Grain Initiative”) and the prisoner exchange agreements. And this was proof that it was still possible to negotiate.

The history of the Grain Agreement, which was signed on July 18, 2022 between Russia and Ukraine with the mediation of Turkey and the UN, is actually ambiguous. Its initial relative success ended in failure within a year, when Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The short and controversial experience of the Grain Agreement nevertheless provides us with both positive and negative lessons for future peace negotiations.

A positive lesson is the prospect of a format of parallel negotiations with the help of mediators and parallel signing of agreements (separately with Russia and separately with Ukraine). This format may allow overcoming psychological and political barriers in terms of the unwillingness of Ukrainian and Russian officials to direct negotiations. It is also positive in confirming the very possibility of reaching compromise agreements between Russia and Ukraine.

A negative lesson is that Russia has once again confirmed its dubious reputation as an unreliable and conflictual negotiating partner who can violate all agreements.

Another example of the positive experience of indirect negotiations with the help of mediators are the negotiations on the return of children from the territory of the other warring party. Very little is known about these negotiations, but they are confirmed by the very fact of their periodic holding and certain positive results.

Perhaps the most successful experience is the experience of negotiations on the exchange of prisoners. The paradox of this negotiation case is that these have been direct negotiations for a long time (mediators helped only at the beginning and in some difficult situations). And although Russia has stopped the exchange of prisoners several times, this negotiation channel still works regularly enough as an established mechanism. What could contribute to the success of these negotiations? In my opinion, this is due to the fact that they are purely technical and concrete in nature (in this case, the exchange of prisoners and bodies of the killed - how many for how many, when and where). In these negotiations there is no conflict of political interests (geopolitical, domestic political, personal, etc.) and the complexity of combining different topics and problems.

 

Representatives of the military, special services, and ombudsmen are involved in closed-door negotiations on the exchange of prisoners. The special services of various countries have long had the exclusive ability to simultaneously fight the enemy and maintain immediate technical contacts with him.

The experience of negotiations on the exchange of prisoners, although successful, can hardly be directly transferred to political communication about ending the war. The more big politics and issues on which it is impossible to find a mutually acceptable compromise (such as, for example, the status of the territories occupied by Russia in Ukraine) are in the negotiations, the more difficult it will be to reach an agreement.

Thus, the experience of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine during the current war allows us to draw the following conclusions:

 

 

Russia can break any agreement with Ukraine at any time. Therefore, one should not expect stable agreements on permanent peace between Russia and Ukraine. However, I would like to emphasize that this does not mean rejecting the need for peace negotiations and the desire to end the war. After some time, some peace negotiations will still take place, so the possibility of peace negotiations should be kept in mind. In addition, historical and international experience knows many examples when “truces” were/are in force for a long time (decades), and they turned out to be more stable and effective than classic “peace treaties”.