Russia offered to end its invasion of Ukraine if it dumped plans to join NATO, but Kyiv feared a double-cross, says negotiator

Volodymyr Zelenskyy & Vladimir Putin. Getty Images

• Russia proposed ending the war if Ukraine abandoned its NATO ambitions, a Ukrainian politician said.
• The proposal was made during peace talks soon after the full-scale invasion.
• “There is no, and there was no, trust in the Russians that they would do it,” said the senior politician.

Russia offered to stop its invasion of Ukraine on the condition that Zelenskyy’s government abandoned its ambition to join NATO, The Kyiv Post reports.

David Arakhamiya, leader of the Servant of the People party and head of the Ukrainian delegation in the talks, said that Russia had proposed a resolution to the conflict in spring 2022.

The peace talks took place during the early stages of the full-scale war in Belarus and Turkey.

The Russian delegation reportedly proposed ending the war if Ukraine dropped its NATO aspirations and took a neutral position.

Arakhamiya said that a shift toward neutrality would require a constitutional change, considering Ukraine’s current constitutional commitment to NATO membership.

Arakhamiya told Ukrainian journalist Natalia Moseychuk that Russia saw Ukraine’s neutrality as a key condition for a potential peace agreement. “They really hoped almost to the last that they would put the squeeze on us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the biggest thing for them,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader said there was a lack of trust in Russia’s sincerity. “There is no, and there was no, trust in the Russians that they would do it. That could only be done if there were security guarantees,” he explained.

Signing an agreement without such assurances, Arakhamiya argued, would leave Ukraine vulnerable to a potential second incursion, as it would have provided Russia with an opportunity to regroup and prepare for another round of military aggression.

War crimes

Communal workers prepare to carry a corpse in a body bag in a street of Bucha, not far from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on April 3, 2022. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 9 had an impact on the potential ceasefire. Johnson advised against signing any agreement with Russia, encouraging Ukraine to continue the fight. Arakhamiya recalled Johnson’s stance, saying Ukraine “shouldn’t sign anything with them at all – and let’s just fight.”

While both sides expressed readiness for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussions abruptly halted when Russian troops retreated from Kyiv. The withdrawal exposed the shocking extent of war crimes committed, including the Bucha massacre.

Three days after Johnson’s departure from Kyiv, Putin publicly declared that talks with Ukraine had “turned into a dead end.”

NATO expansion has been underway since the beginning of the war, with formerly neutral Finland joining the alliance in April.

Business Insider reported in January that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was a miscalculation, as the war backfired by uniting NATO in support of Ukraine.

While the bloc has been a crucial ally to Ukraine, there is a reluctance to initiate Ukrainian membership while it is at war. The US opposes extending NATO membership to Ukraine in the immediate future to avoid escalating the West’s tensions with Russia.