War of Attrition: Who sabotaged the 2022 “peace treaty” between Russia and Ukraine?
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: When Russia launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it fancied the weaker neighbor could surrender within “48 to 72 hours.” That was why Moscow had not formally declared the action as a “war.”
But the conflict, which became an all-out war for both countries, continues even after 16 months.
It has now emerged that Russia and Ukraine had reportedly signed a “peace treaty” in Turkey in Spring 2022 but Kyiv backtracked, allegedly at the instance of the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to media reports on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed this “peace treaty” draft to a visiting delegation of African Union leaders, led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Their meeting also included leaders from Senegal, Egypt, Zambia, Uganda, Congo Republic, and the Comoro Islands.
President Putin accused Ukraine of first signing a peace treaty with Moscow to end the conflict, and then throwing it into the ‘garbage of history’. He made these comments at St. Petersberg’s Konstantinovsky Palace.
The Russian leader asserted that in the spring of 2022, during the initial phase of the conflict, the two countries signed a peace treaty in Istanbul where Turkey hosted a series of negotiations to help develop “trust” between the two warring sides.
“It was called the Treaty of Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees of Ukraine,” Putin said as showed the African leaders a draft of the purported treaty.
“We never agreed with the Ukrainian side that the text will be confidential but we never showed it before nor commented on it. This draft of the treaty was initialed by the leader of the negotiation group from Kyiv. He put his signature. There it exists,” he added.
Kyiv did not react to President Putin’s fresh comments.
Ukraine discarded the treaty as soon as Russia obliged the request and withdrew troops from Kyiv, President Putin alleged, saying, “Where are the guarantees that they will not renounce any other agreements in the future?”
A social media user posted on Twitter a clip of Putin showing a draft of the peace treaty to African leaders.
In the video, he reportedly said Russia never rejected the negotiations. “I want to draw your attention to this, with the assistance of the President (Erdogan), as you know, Turkey hosted, a whole series of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to develop and build trust, as you mentioned, and the preparation of the exact text of the treaty. We never agreed with the Ukraine side that this agreement will be confidential, but we never showed it before, nor commented on it. This draft of the treaty was initialed by the leader of the negotiation group from Kyiv. He put his signature there. It exists. It was called the Treaty of Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees of Ukraine.
He said the draft had 18 articles, and an addendum, which applied to the armed forces and touched other things. Everything was spelled out. Up to the amount of military equipment and personnel of the armed forces.” Here is the document. It is initialed by the Kyiv delegation. His signature is here. Well after that, as we promised, we withdrew troops from Kyiv. The Kyiv authorities in the same way (must have) honored it. But they threw it all away in the garbage dump of history. Let’s say carefully, trying to phrase it intelligently.
According to reports, quoting a social media user, Boris Johnson appeared in Kyiv with military gifts for Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy when the media was announcing the probable success of peace talks between the two nations. After this, the Ukrainian delegation did not appear again for the negotiations, he added.
He claimed that Ukrainian President Zelensky broke his promise when the Russians withdrew their troops from Kyiv in view of the peace agreement between the two nations.
Putin also questioned, “Where are the guarantees that they will not renounce any other agreements in the future?”
