Russia gives US a list of demands before talks with Ukraine
It is not clear what the demands are, but they may be similar to what Russia had earlier presented to Ukraine, US, and NATO
Russia has reportedly given a list of demands to the US that need to be fulfilled in order for it to enter into talks to end its war with Ukraine and begin a fresh relationship with America.
It is, however, not clear what the demands are, and whether Russia will agree to have peace talks with Ukraine before the acceptance of the demands, according to some people privy to what is going on. They said that Russian and US representatives discussed the terms during personal meetings and virtual conferences over the last three weeks.
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All they could say is that Moscow’s terms are broad, and similar to what it had earlier presented to Ukraine, NATO, and the US.
Russia’s earlier demands
Russia’s earlier demands included the following – no NATO membership for Ukraine, a deal not to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine, and international recognition of Moscow’s claim that Crimea and four provinces belong to Russia.
In the past few years, Russia has also insisted that the US and NATO address what it calls the “root causes” of the war – NATO’s eastward expansion.
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Russia has also, during the last two decades, sought to constrain US and NATO military operations from eastern Europe to central Asia. Russia has tried to prevent the West from building a stronger military presence in Europe so that Putin could potentially follow an expansionist policy in the continent.
30-day truce hangs on Putin’s response
US President Donald Trump is waiting to hear from Russian President Vladimir Putin whether he is agreeable to a 30-day truce that the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already agreed to as the first step towards ending the 3-year-old war.
Several people in the US fear that Putin could use the truce to ramp up Russia’s efforts to divide Europe, the US, and Ukraine, and to undermine any peace talks.
US strategy not clear
The Trump administration seems to be divided on how to negotiate with Moscow.
While America’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who is part of the team leading the discussion with Russia, had said last month that the Istanbul talks in 2022 “were cogent and substantive, and could be a guidepost to get a peace deal done”, Trump’s top Russia and Ukraine envoy General Keith Kellogg (retd) said last week that he did not see the Istanbul agreement as a starting point.
Kellogg was of the view that they had to develop something entirely new.
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The draft agreement in Istanbul in 2022 was discussed by the US, Russia, and Ukraine. Russia had demanded that Ukraine give up its efforts to gain NATO membership, accept a permanent nuclear-free status, and a veto over actions by countries that wanted to help Ukraine in the event of war.
Europe’s fear
A former Pentagon official who directs foreign and defence policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Kori Schake, said that many of Russia’s demands are similar to what it has been making since 1945.
Schake said that seeing how the Trump administration has been behaving in recent weeks, the Europeans are not just scared the Americans are abandoning them, they’re afraid the US has “joined the enemy”.
