Vladimir Socor
On May 16, in Istanbul, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met for the first time in more than three years of war to discuss a ceasefire.
The Kremlin rejected this Western-backed initiative, countered with an old set of ceasefire preconditions, and introduced more insurmountable conditions at the Istanbul meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also hoped to use the Istanbul talks to arrange a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin holds out the possibility of such a meeting contingent on Ukrainian ceasefire proposals acceptable to Russia.
Moscow portrays the Istanbul meeting and possible follow-up negotiations stemming from Russian-drafted “agreements” offered to Ukraine in Istanbul in March–April 2022. There were no such “agreements,” but Russia wants to incorporate parts of its own 2022 drafts into the terms of settlement.
On May 16, in Istanbul, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in person for the first time in more than three years of full-scale war to discuss a possible ceasefire-in-place. U.S. President Donald Trump had forcefully urged Kyiv and Moscow to hold this meeting with a few days’ advance notice. Kyiv’s closest European partners seconded Trump’s initiative, threatening Moscow with another round of European sanctions if it did not cooperate (EurActiv, May 10).
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had last met face-to-face in Istanbul in March 2022, four weeks into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (see EDM, March 17, 22, 2022). They had continued negotiations by videoconference between Kyiv and Moscow until late April 2022, referenced as the “Istanbul process.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has falsely claimed ever since that Kyiv had accepted the Russian-drafted terms of settlement. Moscow, therefore, portrays the resumption of talks as stemming from those alleged “agreements,” and wants any further negotiations to incorporate the draft documents from the 2022 Istanbul process (see below).
No comments:
Post a Comment