Day: June 14, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set out the requirements for Moscow to start peace talks with Ukraine, more than two years after the Kremlin’s full-fledged invasion of its neighbor.

According to a Google-translated Telegram update from Russian state news outlet Tass, the terms include the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Russia illegally annexed within months of commencing hostilities, in September 2022.

The Kremlin’s conditions are unlikely to receive a warm reception in Kyiv, which has repeatedly stated that it will not concede territory to Russia.

Putin said during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry that as long as Ukraine begins a “real withdrawal of troops from these regions, and will also officially notify of the abandonment of plans to join NATO — on our part, immediately, at the same minute, an order will follow to cease fire and begin negotiations,” according to Google-translated comments carried by Tass.

He said that Moscow was committed to ensuring the “unhindered and safe withdrawal” of Ukrainian forces if Kyiv agrees to such a concession.

If the peace proposal is refused, Putin added, Moscow’s future demands will be different.

Putin’s comments contrast starkly with his Ukrainian counterpart’s peace plan. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point proposal, outlined in November 2022, demands the restoration of the country’s “territorial integrity” under the U.N. Charter. He has also insisted that Ukraine regain the peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed illegally prior to the current war, in February 2014.

CNBC has reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

Peace frameworks have so far been doomed to fail throughout the Ukraine conflict. A 12-point plan released by Russia’s ally Beijing on the war’s one-year anniversary also gained no momentum. China is once again pushing its own alternative diplomatic plan, Reuters reports.

Putin’s Friday proposal threatens to steal the spotlight from imminent negotiations in Switzerland, where at least 90 countries and organizations are set to meet over June 15-16 at the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock for the Summit on Peace in Ukraine.

Moscow, notably, was not invited — and has in the past touted the futility of third parties attempting to negotiate a resolution to the conflict without Russia’s participation. Previous summits have failed to implement a diplomatic solution to the conflict or abate hostilities on the battlefield.

It comes as Ukraine’s allies have been stepping up support in recent weeks, both financially and militarily.

On Thursday, leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations agreed in principle to issue $50 billion in loans for Kyiv that are backed by the profits generated by roughly 300 billion euros ($322 billion) of Russian central bank assets frozen by the West. European Council President Charles Michel stressed that “Russia has to pay.”

NATO is separately due to discuss further support for Ukraine during its upcoming summit of July 9-11. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg expects member countries to agree a “long-term financial pledge to provide military support” for Kyiv and a “leading role” for the military alliance in providing and coordinating security assistance in the war-torn country.

Already, the U.S. and Germany have removed some restrictions on weapons they supply to Ukraine and now permit their use against targets just over the border inside Russia, exclusively for the purpose of defending Kharkiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO.

Such a deal appears a nonstarter for Kyiv, which wants to join the military alliance and has demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from all of its territory. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Putin’s proposal.

“We will do it immediately,” Putin said in a speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.

His remarks came as leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations met in Italy and as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders — but not from Moscow — this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine. The U.S. and Ukraine this week also signed a 10-year security agreement that they hailed as a milestone in relations.

Russia launched its a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After Ukrainian forces thwarted a Russian drive to the capital, much of the fighting has focused in the south and east – and Russia illegally annexed regions in the east and the south, although it doesn’t fully control any of them.

Putin said his proposal is aimed at a “final resolution” of the conflict in Ukraine rather than “freezing it,” and stressed that the Kremlin is “ready to start negotiations without delay.”

Broader demands for peace that the Russian leader listed included Ukraine’s non-nuclear status, restrictions on its military force and protecting the interests of the Russian-speaking population in the country. All of these should become part of “fundamental international agreements,” and all Western sanctions against Russia should be lifted, Putin said.

“We’re urging to turn this tragic page of history and to begin restoring, step-by-step, restore the unity between Russia and Ukraine and in Europe in general,” he said.

Putin’s remarks represented a rare occasion in which he clearly laid out his conditions for ending the war in Ukraine, but it didn’t include any new demands. The Kremlin has said before that Kyiv should recognize its territorial gains and drop its bid to join NATO.

Russia doesn’t fully control any of the four regions it illegally annexed in 2022, but Putin insisted Friday that Kyiv should withdraw from them entirely and essentially cede them to Moscow within their administrative borders. In Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, Russia still doesn’t control the region’s namesake administrative capital with a pre-war population of about 700,000, and in the neighboring Kherson region, Moscow withdrew from Kherson’s biggest city and capital of the same name in November 2022.

Putin said that if “Kyiv and Western capitals” reject his offer, “it is their business, their political and moral responsibility for continuing the bloodshed.”