There are rumors, from Israel, of meaningful peace talks occurring.
Russia demands:
Crimea
Donbas region’s independence
Ukrainian neutrality (promise to not join NATO)
Shrinking Ukraine army
If these are truly Russia’s demands, they are coming from a position of weakness.
I can understand Zelenskyy taking this offer seriously, as the alternative is the total destruction of his state. But allowing Zelenskyy to continue his government is a huge failure for Russia. Their entire platform for war was to save Donbas and to denazify the government in Kyiv.
Anyway, I can see ultimate settlements ceding Crimea, since it was Russia’s before it was Ukraine’s (it transferred to ukraine USSR in the 1950s, still a very long time ago, and was with independent Ukraine in 1991). Aside from history, though, Sevastopol is just too important to Russia.
I believe there is lots of room here for Zelenskyy to negotiate, but we will see.
Yes, these were his demands in recent years. But what’s interesting is that he escalated his ask when he invaded. His clear aim was to restore the previous pro-Russian government. If these current demands are accurate, that means Putin is backing off from that threat.
Of course, from the beginning I hypothesized Putin wanting a buffer and probably being happy with officially recognized Russian Crimea and independent Donbas states. You could speculate that the war was meant to threaten more than he wanted in hopes of being appeased with what he wanted.
But given the flipped political climate that I’m sure Putin didn’t expect, Zelenskyy may fire back on these demands and Putin may need to compromise even more.
Really, we’re just speculating until more concrete information comes out.
NATO states will be fine. Putin will need to weaken NATO from within before addressing them. States like Moldova are the bigger immediate question, but given how the world turned on Putin, I don’t know if they’re in a position to proceed to Moldova, especially if western ukraine remains independent.
You mean fracturing NATO and promoting unrest and influence in post-Soviet halo states? Those are Russia’s goals. I don’t think militarily they are in a position to achieve those goals right now.
