{"id":1298,"date":"2025-01-25T20:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T20:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2025-01-25T20:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T20:09:12","slug":"paper-sabotage-of-the-istanbul-peace-agreement-prof-glenn-diesen-geopoliticsamongstates-gr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"Paper: Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement*, Prof. Glenn Diesen** & geopoliticsamongstates.gr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement, Prof. Glenn Diesen & geopoliticsamongstates.gr<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to impose a settlement after some NATO countries had undermined the Minsk-2 peace agreement for 7 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the first day after the invasion, Zelensky confirmed that Moscow contacted him to discuss negotiations based on restoring Ukraine\u2019s neutrality\u00b9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the third day after the invasion, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start negotiations on a peace based on Russian military withdrawal in return for Ukrainian neutrality\u00b2
Zelensky responded favourably to this condition, and he even called for a \u201ccollective security agreement\u201d to include Russia to mitigate the security competition that had sparked the war\u00b3.
The negotiations that followed are referred to as the Istanbul negotiations*, in which Russia and Ukraine were close to an agreement before the US and the UK sabotaged it.
Washington Rejects Negotiations Without Preconditions
In Washington, there were great incentives to use the large proxy army it had built in Ukraine to weaken Russia as a strategic rival, rather than accepting a neutral Ukraine. On the first day after the Russian invasion, when Zelensky responded favourably to start negotiations without preconditions, the US spokesperson rejected peace talks without preconditions as Russia would first have to withdraw all its forces from Ukraine:
\u201cNow we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow\u2019s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy\u2026 If President Putin is serious about diplomacy, he knows what he can do. He should immediately stop the bombing campaign against civilians, order the withdrawal of his forces from Ukraine, and indicate very clearly, unambiguously to the world, that Moscow is prepared to de-escalate\u201d\u2074
This was a demand for capitulation as the Russian military presence in Ukraine was Russia\u2019s bargaining chip to achieve the objective of restoring Ukraine\u2019s neutrality. Less than a month later, the same US spokesperson was asked if Washington would support Zelensky\u2019s negotiations with Moscow, in which he replied negatively as the conflict was part of a larger struggle:
\u201cThis is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it\u2019s bigger than Ukraine\u2026. The key point is that there are principles that are at stake here that have universal applicability everywhere, whether in Europe, whether in the Indo-Pacific, anywhere in between\u201d\u2075
The US and UK Demand a Long War: Fighting Russia with Ukrainians
In late March 2022, Zelensky revealed in an interview with the Economist that \u201cThere are those in the West who don\u2019t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives\u201d\u2076
The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to make a compromise to end the war before the US and the UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.
Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to mediate the peace negotiations with Moscow. Bennett noted that Putin was willing to make \u201chuge concessions\u201d if Ukraine would restore its neutrality to end NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and \u201cboth sides very much wanted a ceasefire\u201d. However, Bennett argued that the US and UK then intervened and \u201cblocked\u201d the peace agreement as they favoured a long war. With a powerful Ukrainian military at its disposal, the West rejected the Istanbul peace agreement and there was a \u201cdecision by the West to keep striking Putin\u201d instead of pursuing peace\u2077
The Turkish negotiators reached the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine\u2019s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia with Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued some NATO states wanted to extend the war to bleed Russia:
\u201cAfter the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long.\u2026 But following the NATO foreign ministers\u2019 meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue\u2014let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don\u2019t care much about the situation in Ukraine\u201d\u2078
Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan\u2019s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:
\u201cThis war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some countries in Europe are beginning a process of prolonging this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The U.S. sees the prolongation of the war as its interest\u201d\u2079
Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin \u201ctried everything\u201d to reach a peace agreement and they were able \u201cto find a very real compromise\u201d\u00b9\u2070
Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary representative and head of Zelensky\u2019s political party, argued Russia\u2019s key demand was Ukrainian neutrality: \u201cThey were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political \u2018additions\u2019\u201d\u00b9\u00b9
Oleksiy Arestovych, the former advisor of Zelensky, also confirmed that Russia was mainly preoccupied with restoring Ukraine\u2019s neutrality.
The main obstacle to peace was thus overcome as Zelensky offered neutrality in the negotiations\u00b9\u00b2
The tentative peace agreement was confirmed by Fiona Hill, a former official at the US National Security Council, and Angela Stent, a former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. Hill and Stent penned an article in Foreign Affairs in which they outlined the main terms of the agreement:
\u201cRussian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries\u201d\u00b9\u00b3
Boris Johnson Goes to Kiev
What happened to the Istanbul peace agreement? On 9 April 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Kiev in a rush to sabotage the agreement and cited the killings in Bucha as the excuse. Ukrainian media reported that Johnson came to Kiev with two messages:
\u201cThe first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and US] are not\u201d\u00b9\u2074
In June 2022, Johnson told the G7 and NATO that the solution to the war was \u201cstrategic endurance\u201d and \u201cnow is not the time to settle and encourage the Ukrainians to settle for a bad peace\u201d\u00b9\u2075
Johnson also published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against any negotiations: \u201cThe war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin\u2019s defeat\u201d\u00b9\u2076
Before Boris Johnson\u2019s trip to Kiev, Niall Ferguson had interviewed several American and British leaders, who confirmed that a decision had been made for \u201cthe conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin\u201d as \u201cthe only end game now is the end of Putin regime\u201d\u00b9\u2077
Retired German General Harald Kujat, the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, confirmed that Johnson had sabotaged the peace negotiations. Kujat argued: \u201cUkraine had pledged to renounce NATO membership and not to allow any foreign troops or military installations to be stationed\u2019, while \u201cRussia had apparently agreed to withdraw its forces to the level of February 23\u201d. However, \u201cBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened in Kiev on the 9th of April and prevented a signing. His reasoning was that the West was not ready for an end to the war\u201d\u00b9\u2078
According to Kujat, the West demanded a Russian capitulation: \u201cNow the complete withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations\u201d\u00b9\u2079
General Kujat explained that this position was due to the US war plans against Russia:
\u201cPerhaps one day the question will be asked who did not want to prevent this war\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their declared goal is to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily to such a degree that they can then turn to their geopolitical rival, the only one capable of endangering their supremacy as a world power: China\u2026 No, this war is not about our freedom\u2026 Russia wants to prevent its geopolitical rival USA from gaining a strategic superiority that threatens Russia\u2019s security\u201d\u00b2\u2070
What was Ukraine told by the US and the UK? Why did Zelensky make a deal given that he was aware some Western states wanted to use Ukraine to exhaust Russia in a long war – even if it would destroy Ukraine? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zelensky likely received an offer he could not refuse: If Zelensky would pursue peace with Russia, then he would not receive any support from the West and he would predictably face an uprising by the far-right \/ fascist groups that the US had armed and trained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, if Zelensky would choose war, then NATO would send all the weapons needed to defeat Russia, NATO would impose crippling sanctions on Russia, and NATO would pressure the international community to isolate Russia. Zelensky could thus achieve what both Napoleon and Hitler had failed to achieve \u2013 to defeat Russia.
The advisor to Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, explained in 2019 that a major war with Russia was the price for joining NATO. Arestovych predicted that the threat of Ukraine\u2019s accession to NATO would \u201cprovoke Russia to launch a large-scale military operation against Ukraine\u201d, and Ukraine could join NATO after defeating Russia. Victory over Russia was assumed to be a certainty as Ukraine would merely be the spearhead of a wider NATO proxy war: \u201cIn this conflict, we will be very actively supported by the West\u2014with weapons, equipment, assistance, new sanctions against Russia and the quite possible introduction of a NATO contingent, a no-fly zone etc. We won\u2019t lose, and that\u2019s good\u201d\u00b2\u00b9
NATO turned on the propaganda machine to convince its public that a war against Russia was the only path to peace: The Russian invasion was \u201cunprovoked\u201d; Moscow\u2019s objective was to conquer all of Ukraine to restore the Soviet Union; Russia\u2019s withdrawal from Kiev was not a sign of good-will to be reciprocated but a sign of weakness; it was impossible to negotiate with Putin; and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg subsequently asserted that \u201cweapons are the way to peace\u201d. The Western public, indoctrinated with anti-Russian propaganda over decades, believed that NATO was merely a passive third-party seeking to protect Ukraine from the most recent reincarnation of Hitler. Zelensky was assigned the role as new Churchill \u2013 bravely fighting to the last Ukrainian rather than accepting a bad peace.
The Inevitable Istanbul+ Agreement to End the War
The war did not go as expected. Russia built a powerful army and defeated the NATO-built Ukrainian army; sanctions were overcome by reorienting the economy to the East; and instead of being isolated \u2013 Russia took a leading role in constructing a multipolar world order.
How can the war be brought to an end? The suggestions of a land-for-NATO membership agreement ignores that Russia\u2019s leading objective is not territory but ending NATO expansion as it is deemed to be an existential threat. NATO expansion is the source of the conflict and territorial dispute is the consequence, thus Ukrainian territorial concessions in return for NATO membership is a non-starter.
The foundation for any peace agreement must be the Istanbul+ formula: An agreement to restore Ukraine\u2019s neutrality, plus territorial concessions as a consequence of almost 3 years of war. Threatening to expand NATO after the end of the war will merely incentivise Russia to annex the strategic territory from Kharkov to Odessa, and to ensure that only a dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state will remain that is not capable of being used against Russia.
This is a cruel fate for the Ukrainian nation and the millions of Ukrainians who have suffered so greatly. It was also a predictable outcome, as Zelensky cautioned in March 2022: \u201cThere are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives\u201d\u00b2\u00b2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]
V. Zelensky, \u2018Address by the President to Ukrainians at the end of the first day of Russia’s attacks\u2019, President of Ukraine: Official website, 25 February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]
S. Raskin and L. Brown, \u2018Ukraine and Russia to meet for peace talks \u2018without preconditions,\u2019 Zelensky says\u2019, New York Post, 27 February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]
M. Hirsh, \u2018Hints of a Ukraine-Russia Deal?\u2019, Foreign Policy, 8 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]
US Department of State, \u2018Department Press Briefing\u2019, US Department of State, 25 February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]
US Department of State, \u2018Department Press Briefing\u2019, US Department of State, 21 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]
The Economist. \u2018Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin\u2019 The Economist, 27 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]
N. Bennett, \u2018Bennett speaks out\u2019, YouTube Channel of Naftali Bennett, 4 February 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]
R. Semonsen, \u2018Former Israeli PM: West Blocked Russo-Ukraine Peace Deal\u2019, The European Conservative, 7 February 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]
CNN, \u2018Son dakika… Numan Kurtulmu\u015f CNN T\u00dcRK’te: (Rusya-Ukrayna) Birileri sava\u015f\u0131 bitirmemek i\u00e7in \u00e7abal\u0131yor\u2019 [Last minute… Numan Kurtulmu\u015f on CNN T\u00dcRK: (Russia-Ukraine) Someone is trying not to end the war], CNN Turk, 18 November 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]
Breaking the Stalemate to Find Peace: The Russia-Ukraine War \u2013 A Geneva Security Debate (youtube.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]
A. Sobczak, \u2018Diplomacy Watch: Did the West scuttle the Istanbul talks or not?\u2019, Responsible Statecraft, 12 September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]
Guardian, \u2018Ukraine has offered neutrality in talks with Russia \u2013 what would that mean?\u2019, The Guardian, 30 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]
F. Hill and A. Stent, \u2018The World Putin Wants How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future\u2019, Foreign Affairs, September\/October 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]
R. Romaniuk, \u2018Possibility of talks between Zelenskyy and Putin came to a halt after Johnson\u2019s visit – UP sources\u2019, Ukraniska Pravda, 5 May 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]
E. Webber, \u2018Boris Johnson warns against seeking \u2018bad peace\u2019 in Ukraine\u2019, Politico, 23 June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]
B. Johnson, \u2018For a Quicker End to the Russia War, Step Up Aid to Ukraine\u2019, Wall Street Journal, 9 December 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]
N. Ferguson, \u2018Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.\u2019, Bloomberg, 22 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]
J. Helmer, \u2018Whr. Gen. Kujat: Ukraine War is Lost, Germany Now Faces an Angry Russia\u2026 Alone\u2019, Veterans Today, 25 January 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]
Emma, \u2018Russland will verhandeln!\u2019 [Russia wants to negotiate!], Emma, 4 March 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]
A. Arestovich, \u2018Voennoe Obozrenie\u2019 [Military Review], Apostrof TV, 18 February 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]
The Economist. \u2018Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin\u2019 The Economist, 27 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/29\/world\/europe\/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-istanbul.html?login=google&auth=login-google<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anton Troianovski<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 March 29, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopes for a peace deal center on negotiators at a palace in Istanbul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the world is expecting good news from you,\u201d President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in greeting the Russian and Ukrainian delegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISTANBUL \u2014 On Tuesday, for the first time in more than two weeks, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators came face to face. They did so over a white tablecloth at a long table inside a 19th-century Ottoman palace on the banks of the Bosporus, welcomed personally by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who greeted them in English with \u201cgood morning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After more than a month of talks \u2014 first in person in Belarus, then in recent weeks by video link \u2014 the diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia running in parallel to their war entered a new phase on Tuesday. The fact that the negotiations had become more serious was reflected in the setting, the palace where Mr. Erdogan \u2014 who has maintained ties with both Moscow and Kyiv \u2014 often holds major government events when in Istanbul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the members of the delegations, you have shouldered a historic responsibility,\u201d Mr. Erdogan told the delegates, addressing them from a podium before an artwork showing birds drifting over Istanbul landmarks. \u201cAll the world is expecting good news from you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Arakhamia, the head of the nine-person Ukrainian delegation, said that holding the talks in Turkey was a \u201cvictory\u201d in itself, because Turkey \u201cis our friend and partner.\u201d The earlier in-person rounds of talks had been held in Belarus, Russia\u2019s closest ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Turkey, while a NATO member, has also been determined to maintain ties with Russia, refusing to join sanctions against Moscow and maintaining direct air connections to multiple Russian cities. Mr. Erdogan said that once President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine were ready to meet in person, Turkey would be ready to host them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In video footage of the meeting distributed by Turkey, the two delegations could not be seen shaking hands, with the Russians arriving after the Ukrainians were already seated. But they made small talk in Russian, as when Mr. Arakhamia told the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, that the little bottle on the table was hand sanitizer; Mr. Medinsky\u2019s response was not fully audible, but some Russian media said he quipped, \u201cVodka, I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian delegates wore suits, while the Ukrainians were dressed more casually, one in a short-sleeve shirt, another in military fatigues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delegates gathered on the grounds of the Dolmabahce Palace in central Istanbul. It was where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, died in 1938, and it is now used in part by Mr. Erdogan as one of his offices when he is in Istanbul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in the room as Mr. Erdogan spoke was Roman Abramovich, the Russian business tycoon who is reported to have shuttled between Moscow and Kyiv to try to push the talks forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports have emerged that he and several Ukrainian negotiators had been victims of a potential poisoning after suffering symptoms including impaired vision at previous rounds of talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Mr. Abramovich sat next to Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan\u2019s spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safak Timur contributed reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was previously Moscow bureau chief of The Washington Post and spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and New York. More about Anton Troianovski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

** Glenn Diesen
Professor and Editor: Russian Foreign Policy, Greater Eurasia & Geoeconomics <\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/youtube.com\/@GDiesen1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/gofund.me\/abf94f7e<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement, Prof. Glenn Diesen & geopoliticsamongstates.gr In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to impose a settlement after some NATO countries had undermined the Minsk-2 peace agreement for 7 years.  On the first day after the invasion, Zelensky confirmed that Moscow contacted him to discuss negotiations based on restoring Ukraine\u2019s neutrality\u00b9. On the third day after the invasion, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start negotiations on a peace based on Russian military withdrawal in return for Ukrainian neutrality\u00b2Zelensky responded favourably to this condition, and he even called…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1300,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}