Russia has released an embryonic Treaty of final settlement with Ukraine following their June 2 bilateral meeting in Istanbul. The territorial clauses require Ukraine to recognize Russia’s de jure annexations of Crimea and four Ukrainian mainland provinces to the full extent of their pre-2014 administrative boundaries.
Security clauses demand Ukraine give up all its previously existing forms of cooperation with Western powers in any framework. Under its expansive interpretation of neutrality, Russia could also claim the right to vet or even veto cooperation agreements between Ukraine and the European Union. Ukraine’s renunciation of war reparations could shift the post-war reconstruction costs on the EU.
Cultural and political clauses would introduce official Russian-Ukrainian language parallelism and language contest in Ukraine; could ban legitimate expressions of Ukrainian nationalism through conflation with “Nazism;” and initiate a process of re-russification in Ukraine.
On June 2, in Istanbul, Russian negotiators presented their Ukrainian counterparts with military and political preconditions for a ceasefire agreement and an eventual settlement of what Russia describes as “the Ukraine crisis.” Moscow eschews the terms “war” and “peace” (see EDM, June .
The set of Russian documents includes two ceasefire options (both in Chapter II), a framework for a final settlement, and a roadmap toward that settlement (Chapters I and III, respectively) (TASS, June 2, released in Russian only).
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