RT.com, 3/29/22

After a month of hostilities, Kiev has come up with a written proposal for what it wants from a peace treaty

On Tuesday, Turkey hosted the latest round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian side has come up with a written proposal for a peace treaty between the two nations, Russia’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told the media after the session, which he described as “substantive.”

The proposal will now be relayed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for consideration, he added. Here is what else emerged after the talks.

Russian offensive scaled down
An immediate practical effect of the talks will be a de-escalation of military activities in some parts of Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry announced. In particular, it pledged to “dramatically” reduce its operations near the cities of Chernigov and the capital, Kiev.

NATO-like security guarantees
David Arakhamia, Medinsky’s opposite number in the Ukrainian delegation, said Kiev had sought a security guarantee similar to that contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. He named Russia, the UK, China, the US, Turkey, France, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel as possible providers. Some of them have given their preliminary agreement, he said. 

No military blocs and non-nuclear Ukraine
In the proposal, Ukraine pledged not to join any military alliance, not to host foreign military bases or foreign troops, Medinsky said. Even military exercises would require prior approval from guarantors, according to the proposal. Kiev also pledged not to seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, the official added. But in return Ukraine wants Russia not to object to its joining the EU one day.

Crimea, Donbass unresolved
According to Medinsky, Kiev offered to pledge not to use military force in an attempt to restore its sovereignty over Ukraine or the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. He stressed that Moscow did not commit to having the Ukrainian wording in the final version of any peace treaty.

Russia considers Crimea to be part of its territory and wants Kiev to recognize it as such. It also recognized the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as sovereign states days before launching its attack against Ukraine last month.

Borders in question
Medinsky said Kiev did not state whether it would relinquish its territorial claim to Donetsk and Lugansk. Prior to February, Ukraine controlled a large portion of both Donetsk and Lugansk and considers the regions to be its own territory.

Arakhamia made it clear that Kiev will assert sovereignty over the entire territory that Ukraine had when it declared independence in 1991, saying there could be no compromise on this point.

New conditions for Zelensky-Putin meeting
Moscow has agreed to organize a meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky as part of the final phase of negotiations over the future peace treaty. The Kremlin had previously said that such a meeting could only be scheduled once the document was finalized and inked by the respective foreign ministers. Holding a summit as soon as possible would speed up the resolution, Medinsky believes.

By Grayson Quay, Yahoo! News, 3/28/22

Russian forces now control the majority of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, CNN reported Monday.

“[W]e are in the hands of the occupiers today,” said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko in a televised interview on Monday. According to Reuters, Boichenko, who is no longer in the city, also said that Russia’s siege of Mariupol has killed nearly 5,000 people and that 160,000 people remain trapped in the city without clean water or electricity. Mariupol had a pre-invasion population of over 400,000.

Ukrainian sources have accused Russian and Russian-backed separatist troops of forcibly taking thousands of Mariupol residents to Russia and of firing on proposed evacuation corridors.

Last week, Zelensky said over 4,000 people had been successfully evacuated from Mariupol. Pro-Russian separatists say they’re evacuating 1,700 per day, per CNN.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Mariupol was “close to falling.” According to the Times, Zelensky told the city’s remaining defenders they may need to flee and said Ukraine’s military cannot muster “a sufficient number of tanks, other armored vehicles, and … aircraft” to “break the blockade in Mariupol.”

Capturing Mariupol would be Russia’s largest victory of the war. Having failed to quickly capture Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities as planned, Russian forces have “narrowed immediate targets to the sieges of the southern port city of Mariupol and the strategically placed city of Chernihiv in the north,” the Times explains.

Mariupol lies on Ukraine’s southern coast between the separatist-controlled Donbas region and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. If Mariupol falls, Russia will have successfully seized a “land bridge” connecting the two.

By Max Seddon, Roman Olearchyk, and Henry Foy, Financial Times, 3/28/22

….Moscow and Kyiv are discussing a pause in hostilities as part of a possible deal that would involve Ukraine abandoning its drive for Nato membership in exchange for security guarantees and the prospect to join the EU, the people said under the condition of anonymity because the matter is not yet finalised.

The draft ceasefire document does not contain any discussion of three of Russia’s initial core demands — “denazification”, “demilitarisation”, and legal protection for the Russian language in Ukraine — the people added.

….As part of the agreement under consideration, Ukraine would also refrain from developing nuclear weapons, or hosting foreign military bases in addition to abandoning its pursuit of Nato membership.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZLLdZbzDTY