Putin Revives 2021 Security Demands in Ukraine Peace Talks

After talks in Moscow with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the Kremlin said peace with Ukraine requires a new European security setup. It described the prerequisite as a new, long-term architecture of indivisible security and peace. Putin also said he wishes eternal peace for Ukraine, even as he continues to reject a comprehensive ceasefire nearly five years after ordering the full-scale invasion.

Moscow has revived its December 2021 draft treaties with the US and Nato. Those proposals would have blocked Ukraine and Georgia from joining Nato and rolled back Nato military infrastructure from central and eastern European countries that joined after the Soviet Union dissolved. Western leaders dismissed them as an unacceptable Russian ultimatum, and two months later Moscow launched its full-scale invasion. Putin aide Yuri Ushakov suggested Moscow may add certain new considerations, citing Western efforts to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Russia's demand for a new European security architecture a trap meant to shift attention away from a ceasefire. She said the priority should be securing a ceasefire, then a peace agreement, and only then discussing Europe's wider security. Europe is not at the table, and Moscow has shown no desire to give it a chair.

This week's Abu Dhabi talks involved Ukraine, Russia and the US. After his Moscow discussions, Witkoff indicated Putin had agreed to the idea of European representatives joining the next round. On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no final decision had been taken, pending clarity on Europe's true intentions and readiness to facilitate peace.

Putin sounded uncompromising and confident: the Americans are seeking a deal and the leaders of Norway and Finland called him last month. Next week in Shenzhen, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, he may hold separate meetings with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping; Russian media are comparing them to Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill's 1945 Big Three. Yet Russia has suffered huge battlefield losses, its economy is under increasing pressure, and Ukrainian drone strikes continue to target oil refineries, sparking fears of fuel shortages. None of that has convinced the Kremlin leader to end the fighting.