On 11 April, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko visited Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin. Although the four-hour meeting was meant to be about bilateral relations, the preceding brief press conference left little doubt that the real purpose was simply to give Putin an opportunity to present his communication panels aimed at influencing public opinion.
The Belarusian leader assisted in the farce by offering consensual remarks and making it seem like this was a proper dialogue. It was a perfectly choreographed setting in which Putin talked about the Swiss peace conference, an event to which Russia was not invited. The audience also learned that Moscow has always been a supporter of peace – in case one has forgotten it due to the invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war.
Lukashenko confirmed that everything was in place for peace talks if Kiev and its Western supporters were open to an agreement. In fact, as Putin said, the parties had already reached an agreement in the spring of 2022, but Ukraine backed out due to pressure from the West. Since this idea has infiltrated the Hungarian information space without criticism, it is worth clarifying a few issues. To begin with, there was a theoretical possibility at the start of the war that Moscow would negotiate, though an actual agreement seemed unfeasible even then. Under the current circumstances, however, it is difficult to put forward rational arguments as to why the Kremlin would be interested in negotiating.
To be sure, it is very much in Russia’s interest to amplify the voices of the 'peace camp', as its strategy to win the war relies partly on cutting Ukraine off from Western support.
But what was the agreement that the parties were allegedly so close to according to Putin? How sincere is the Russian leadership now in its willingness to negotiate?
Negotiations in the spring of 2022
So far, the most comprehensive insight into the negotiations of spring 2022 is provided by a study published in the middle of April by political scientist Samuel Charap and historian Sergei Radchenko. The article reconstructs the diplomatic engagements between the two sides that took place first in Belarus and then in Istanbul, based on an analysis of the draft agreements and interviews conducted with the negotiators and Western officials. Charap and Radchenko argue that while the parties were never close to reaching an agreement, they were much closer to it than it had since been assumed.
According to the draft texts of the agreement, Kiev would have been willing to give up the prospect of NATO membership and assume permanent neutral status with international security guarantees. These guarantees would have specified courses of action for guarantor countries far more concrete in the event of an attack on Ukraine than the defence obligation under NATO's Article 5. It seems that Moscow would have agreed to this, and it also would not have opposed Ukraine's accession to the EU. In addition, Russia would have been open to discuss the status of Crimea and settle it peacefully within 15 years.
However, the parties' respective positions on the future size and capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces were far apart. This is not surprising given that "demilitarisation" and the limiting of Ukrainian military capabilities was one of Russia’s declared goals. Territorial issues, with the exception of postponing the settlement of Crimea’s status, were not on the agenda. The study also stresses that the great powers, from whom Kiev had hoped to obtain security guarantees, were not part of the negotiations. Even if they had been, it seems unlikely that they would have made such a defence commitment to Ukraine. In the absence of such commitments, the Ukrainian leadership could hardly trust an agreement whose success depended largely on a promise made by Moscow. At the same time, the problem of enforcing the agreement was an obstacle for Russia, too. There was no guarantee that once Russian forces were withdrawn from Ukraine, Kiev would truly commit to neutrality and stop seeking defence cooperation with the West. Either way, this is still evidence of how far Putin and Zelensky were willing to go to end the war.
Too good to be true, one might say. Indeed, many find it hard to believe that Putin would have been willing to make such a compromise. Polish experts with insight into the negotiation process criticised the theory of a possible agreement because it takes for granted Russia’s willingness to negotiate. And yet, while one can hardly expect a good faith approach from an actor who tried to liquidate its negotiation partners before the talks, this does not necessarily mean that Moscow was not serious about reaching an agreement at that particular moment.
50 shades of coercion
In order to properly interpret the talks in the spring of 2022, it bears keeping in mind Russia's original objective in Ukraine. For the Kremlin, the question of Ukraine remained an unresolved issue after 2014, as Russia failed to restore its lost influence through the annexation of Crimea and its support for the breakaway 'people's republics' in eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreements, which would have been the vehicle for implementing this very influence, reached a dead end. In exchange for (and through) the reintegration of the 'people's republics' into Ukraine, the agreements would have institutionalised Moscow's influence over Ukrainian politics.
In the years leading up to the 2022 invasion, the Russian leadership not only failed to make Ukraine comply with a political settlement under the Minsk agreements, it also could not prevent Kiev's rapprochement with the West. From the beginning of 2021, Russia renewed its efforts and continued to press its claims, while also beginning to concentrate a large military presence near the Ukrainian border unseen since the Cold War. By the end of 2021, Putin had presented two options that would have settled the issue of Ukraine reassuringly for Russia. One of the solutions was Ukraine's neutrality, while the other was for the West to refrain from deepening its military ties with Ukraine and for NATO to close its doors in front of Kiev. The latter demand was put in writing by Moscow in December 2021 in the form of draft agreements on security guarantees addressed to NATO and the United States. This demand entailed no less than a wholesale redefinition of the European security architecture.
In light of the invasion, many observers took the Russian drafts and the negotiations of January 2022 as meant for deception, but it is actually unclear whether Moscow had from the outset planned to attack Ukraine, and whether the diplomatic process was just a distraction.
It seems more plausible that the Russian leadership strategized along a broad spectrum of coercion rather than within a war-or-peace dichotomy. As Dima Adamsky, a scholar of Russian strategic culture and military thinking, points out, the Kremlin expected coercion to produce results without the use of military force, and it resorted to military means only after other instruments had failed to deliver. In this context, the Russian moves can be considered a single comprehensive coercion operation from autumn 2021. In other words, the overt military aggression against Kiev, originally intended to be limited, is driven by the same logic of coercion but made more manifest through the use of force.
According to Viktor Litvinyenko, a Russian military expert studying the concept of ‘special military operation’, the difference between war and ‘special military operation’ is that while the former never results in peace but always in the victory of one of the parties, the latter allows for the possibility of conflict resolution after the objectives have been achieved. Had the 'special military operation' been successful, Putin could have settled the conflict and the future of Ukraine with a pro-Moscow government, and he could have continued negotiations with the West on the new rules of the European security order from a position of strength.
The failure of the special military operation
When the negotiations started on 28 February 2022, for those unaware of the Russian plans and even for the Ukrainian government, it seemed uncertain whether Ukraine would be able to stay on its feet. For the Russian leadership itself, however, the operation’s failure must have been obvious by then. Contrary to original expectations, the Ukrainian leadership remained in place, Zelensky survived the assassination attempt, and Ukrainian soldiers did not defect or surrender en masse to the incoming Russian forces.
Thus, while it did seem likely that Russian forces would be able to occupy more territory, Moscow must have been aware that the invasion was about to reach its climax, and that pushing the invasion further would only hinder the achievement of political objectives and could even jeopardise the gains made thus far. Indeed, thanks to Ukrainian mobilisation, the balance of forces has rapidly begun to tip in Ukraine's favour, at least in terms of manpower. The 180,000-strong Russian contingent and the 100,000 or so troops mobilised from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics were faced with 400,000 Ukrainians by mid-April, which went up to 600,000 by the end of May. It was thus reasonable for the Russian leadership to enforce some of the original objectives at the negotiating table before the Ukrainians had realised that the Russian offensive was losing much of its steam. Of course, the escalation of military force was part of the diplomatic process itself, and it indicated that the costs to Ukraine could be further increased.
Today, Moscow has little reason to engage in real negotiations
Given all this, it may be that the Russian delegation negotiated with a real intention, though not necessarily in good faith, in the spring of 2022. This is plausible as Moscow may have realised that the cost of coercion for itself (as well) would only increase with time, and that its original political goals would become more difficult to achieve given the losses caused to Ukrainian society. In any case, and as noted above, the lack of trust made an agreement unrealistic.
Today, the situation is fundamentally different. The costs of the 'limited military operation' are already evident on the Russian side, and there is no additional price to incur for continuing the war. Russia's reputation can hardly be worse, and the sanctions have practically reached their limits. The Western community cannot inflict more pain on Russia without causing significant damage to its own economies.
Just as importantly, the Ukrainian society’s hatred of Russia is essentially irreversible. This is hardly surprising after the mass killings, torture and rape in Mariupol, Bucha and many other places, or in light of Moscow's attempts to break Ukraine’s political resistance by attacking critical infrastructure and thus increasing the suffering of civilians.
On the battlefield, the balance of power is clearly in Moscow's favour. This does not make much of a difference in the amount of territory, but the horrendous losses are still in Russia’s interest as long as the Soviet military capabilities equipment pulled out of storage in the thousands are of any use. The Russian leadership expects the Western political support to Ukraine to evaporate before the Soviet legacy equipment is exhausted, and the balance of power starts shifting as Western military industrial capacity continues to boost Ukrainian assets.
Another difference is the question of the occupied territories. Those could have been a bargaining chip in Moscow's hands in the spring of 2022, but the annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson provinces left Russia nothing to offer in return for the political compromises expected from Kiev.
So why does Moscow want to negotiate again and again?
The answer is that it hardly wants to, (certainly not now), but it makes for good optics to pretend to from time to time. On the one hand, stressing Russia's willingness to negotiate is probably an appeal to the countries of the Global South, and it is their sympathy that Moscow is trying to win.
On the other, it is simply a part of Russia's toolkit. Besides destroying Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, another way of weakening Ukraine's military potential is to undermine Western support. The latter is achieved if Russia keeps stressing its availability as a negotiating partner.
From the Russian side, the primary problem is as follows: how can Ukraine be 'demilitarised' such that a significant part of its military potential is located outside the borders of the Ukrainian state, on the territory of NATO countries?
To achieve the demilitarisation of Ukraine, Russia is using military means, such as strikes against military facilities and the energy infrastructure serving them, and non-military ones, such as the undermining of mobilisation efforts, and propaganda to destroy confidence in the Ukrainian state. However, it is clear that it can only rely on the latter against NATO countries.
Taking advantage of the conflicts between members of the pro-Ukrainian coalition and within the societies of these countries is an important part of Russian strategic thinking. Therefore, it is probable that the six-month delay in the adoption of the US aid package caused greater losses to Ukraine than the Russian strikes during the same period.
By portraying itself as a partner willing to negotiate, Moscow can also make political actors opposing military support for Ukraine more presentable and their position worthy of consideration.
None of this means that the Russian leadership would never willingly come to an agreement at some point. But it is naive to assume that this can be facilitated by reducing, rather than increasing, pressure on the Russian leadership, and that simply parroting the importance of negotiations would make a difference and pave the way for a settlement. Failure to recognise this is a form of assistance for Russian influence operations. As such, and to quote Putin, it is not a mistake, but something far worse.
(The author is a researcher at the John Lukács Institute.)