Russia's 'Peace Offering' to Ukraine in 2022 Was Not a Credible Proposal

A wave of recent articles has suggested that Ukrainian officials refused a Russian peace offering that might have ended the two countries' ongoing war all the way back in the Spring of 2022, mere weeks after the full-scale conflict began. The stories are based on comments made earlier this week by David Arahamiya, the head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's "Servant of the People" party in parliament. In an interview with Ukrainian journalist Natalia Moseychuk, Arahamiya, who also headed the Ukrainian negotiating team charged with attempting to find a diplomatic solution to the war while it was still in its early days, said that the "key point" in the talks with Russian representatives was that Ukraine "give the promise that we will not join NATO."

However, as Arahamiya's further comments make clear, the Ukrainian side's refusal was not based primarily on formalities regarding potential future NATO accession but on the impossibility of guaranteeing Ukrainian security in the event that Kyiv agreed to give up its defensive military efforts. "It could only be done if there were guarantees of security," Arahamiya explained, "but we could not sign something, withdraw, everyone would have exhaled there, and then [the Russians] would have come [back] more prepared."

While Arahamiya's less-than-clear explanation of the situation as it existed in Spring 2022 has led even commentators the world over to ask why Ukraine did not choose to avoid what may still be years more of death and suffering by accepting the Russian "peace offer," few analysts on either side of the Atlantic have pointed out how implausible Moscow's proposal really was. Arahamiya is absolutely correct when he notes that, without the provision of massive amounts of foreign military support—quite possibly to include actual NATO national boots on the ground—it was likely that Russian forces would have simply used any resulting ceasefire as an opportunity to regroup for further offensive actions.

Recall that, at the time of the so-called negotiations, a nuclear-armed superpower had just sent its tanks across a sovereign border with the stated aim of "demilitarizing" and "denazifying" a militarily inferior neighbor that had recently elected a president of Jewish heritage with 73% of the popular vote. The idea that any Russian "peace offering" was any more genuine than its stated objectives for launching its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in the first place is highly suspect. Quite simply, Ukraine did not have a chance to "end" the war in Spring 2022. Unfortunately for all involved parties—the Russian people included—Western nations' failure to truly guarantee Ukraine's security by sending sufficient quantities of military aid in a timely manner means that the war is not likely to end anytime soon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has again railed at the West during a speech in which he said that Russia was "at the forefront of building a fairer world order."

Set against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine that he started but did not mention by name, Putin told the World Russian People's Council plenary session on Tuesday that Moscow was engaged in a "fight for sovereignty and justice" which was "one of national liberation."

During the video address, whose transcript was released on the Kremlin website, Putin praised how the "Russian world... has blocked the way of those who aspired to world domination and exceptionalism."

"We are now fighting not just for Russia's freedom but for the freedom of the whole world," he said, describing how "the dictatorship of one hegemon is becoming decrepit."

Russia's main rail link to China has been left paralyzed after Ukraine's Security Service blew up a tunnel in the Russian republic of Buryatia, it has been reported.

The explosions in the Severomuysky Tunnel were masterminded by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), "paralyzing the only serious route of railway communication between the Russian Federation and China," RBC-Ukraine reported on Thursday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

The leaders of Moscow-controlled entities reliant on government subsidies may punish their local officials if orders to balance the books aren't met, the Russian finance ministry told Newsweek.

Chechnya, whose leader is Vladimir Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov, is among the four "non-ethnic Russian republics" that business newspaper Kommersant reported this week had been told to cut their budget deficits.

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, has issued an ominous warning about a possible armed conflict between Moscow and NATO member states during an interview with Russian daily newspaper Izvestia, published Wednesday.

Russian officials have routinely insinuated that Russia could attack NATO members for providing Ukraine with assistance in the ongoing war. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in December 2022 that such countries could be "legitimate military targets."

By Ellie Cook

Russian commanders are withholding maps showing the locations of Moscow-laid mines in southern Ukraine from their own troops, Ukraine's military said.

Russian forces close to the left bank of the Dnieper River often do not have access to "classified" maps of Russian minefields, with information between Moscow's assault units exchanged "without clear coordinates," the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement on Wednesday.

About 50 casualties were reported among Russia's 810th Naval Infantry Brigade in the past month around the Kherson village of Krynky, it said.

Swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine have been heavily mined by the defending Russian forces, trying to slow down the advances that Kyiv hoped to make during its summer counteroffensive that began in June.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.

Barely a month into the counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that Kyiv hoped to start peeling back Russian forces before Moscow could fortify their defenses in such a way.

"I wanted our counteroffensive to happen much earlier, because everyone understood that if the counteroffensive unfolds later, then a bigger part of our territory will be mined," Zelensky told CNN via a translator at the time. "We give our enemy the time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines."

Ukraine is now known as the most mined country on earth. There are "hundreds of kilometres of minefields, millions of explosive devices, in some parts of the frontline up to five mines per square meter," the former Ukrainian defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in August. "We have skilled sappers and modern equipment, but they are extremely insufficient for the front that stretches hundreds of kilometres in the east and south of Ukraine," he told The Guardian.

Earlier this month, Ukraine's military intelligence agency said Russia was "mining critical infrastructure" including electrical substations, across Kherson, which the Kremlin has annexed, but does not fully control.

On top of the minefields, Russia's 810th Naval Infantry Brigade deployed around the Kherson settlement of Krynky "are refusing to conduct assaults on Ukrainian positions" because of poor intelligence and little artillery coordination, the Ukrainian military said.

"The apparent Russian failure to establish a cohesive command structure among forces defending on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast continues to degrade Russian morale and combat capabilities," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said in its latest analysis.

Soldiers from the 810th arrived in Krynky in early October, and likely took over from Russia's 18th Combined Arms Army in the area, the ISW added.

A lack of communication about Russian minefields suggests the commanders of the 18th Combined Arms Army "did not share relevant tactical details with the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade's command," the ISW argued.

Earlier this month, a clip widely circulating on social media appeared to show a Russian marine from the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade around Krynky criticizing his superiors.

"Nothing is clear, and it's all bad," the soldier said in the video.

Ukraine made sweeping gains in Kherson in its first counteroffensive in late 2022, pushing Russian forces back to the east bank of the Dnieper River, which has roughly marked the front lines in the region throughout 2023.

Kyiv's forces have been whittling away at Russian defenses on the east bank, establishing pockets of control with ground operations in villages such as Krynky since mid-October.