Russia is not interested in negotiations with Ukraine based on international law — ISW

The Kremlin’s tough and uncompromising conditions for peace talks are tantamount to Ukraine’s surrender and show that dictator Vladimir Putin is not interested in honest negotiations on any terms other than Russia’s.

This is stated in the report of the Institute for the Study of War.

A recent opinion poll shows that Ukrainians massively reject Russia’s demands for Ukraine’s complete surrender, making the Kremlin’s conditions for ending the war completely unreasonable and unpopular.

The agency’s analysts referred to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly and commissioned by the Razumkov Center on July 15.

According to the survey, 83% of respondents rejected dictator Vladimir Putin’s statement that Ukraine should cede Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions to Russia. Additionally, 58% of the respondents said that Ukraine should not enshrine a neutral, non-aligned, and non-nuclear status in the Constitution, as Moscow insists.

The Institute recalled Putin’s recent statements as preconditions for the start of «peace» negotiations: recognizing Russia’s territorial claims to the four specified eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, «demilitarization,» and a promise not to join NATO.

The ISW states that such harsh conditions of the Kremlin are tantamount to Ukraine’s surrender and indicate that the dictator is not interested in honest negotiations on any terms other than Russian ones.

According to analysts, this is also evidenced by the statement of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who accused NATO of disrespecting Russia’s «main concern» and noted that the alliance’s behavior shows that there are no grounds for peace talks. This was the reaction to NATO’s statement on Ukraine’s membership prospects.

The Institute for the Study of War is convinced that Putin’s idea of Ukraine’s complete surrender as a reasonable precondition for peace talks is also part of an attempt to undermine the country’s efforts to gain international support for its legitimate negotiating positions. These positions are based on and supported by international law, by changing the international perception of the logical conditions for negotiations in favor of Russia.

«Russia’s constant attempts to claim that Ukraine is refusing ‘reasonable’ demands are intended to make Ukraine look unreasonable, despite the fact that Ukraine’s legal borders have been recognized by international law since 1991», – ISW said.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War state that Kyiv continues to demonstrate its willingness to negotiate with Russia on its own terms, and that Ukraine’s demands for a peaceful settlement are in line with international law, in contrast to Russia’s unwillingness to engage in negotiations that end in nothing but Ukraine’s complete surrender.

The ISW recalled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement that plans for a second peace summit should be ready by November 2024, and reiterated that a Russian representative should be present.

Zelenskyy said that as part of the preparations, Ukraine would hold a meeting in Qatar on energy security in late July or early August 2024, a meeting on freedom of navigation in Turkey in August 2024, and a meeting on the exchange of prisoners of war and the repatriation of deported Ukrainian children in Canada in September 2024. These are the three issues that were highlighted in the communiqué of the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland in June 2024, initiated by Ukraine.

At the same time, the Institute noted that recent statements by the Kremlin continue to demonstrate that the Russian authorities remain unwavering in their negotiations with Ukraine, and Russian officials have explicitly stated that they will not participate in the second peace summit, as its terms are unacceptable given Russia’s demands.

Ukrainian officials emphasized that the purpose of the first peace summit was to promote peace based on international law, including laws to which the Russian Federation is a party.

The Institute for the Study of War noted that Ukraine’s demands for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory are provided for by international law, and therefore they are justified. However, Russia’s demands for Ukraine’s complete surrender and continued Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory are and will continue to be a violation of international law.

«ISW also continues to believe that Putin’s demands for Ukraine’s surrender will allow Russian troops and occupation administrations to continue their widespread and targeted campaigns of ethnic cleansing in occupied Ukraine, and that the full restoration of the country’s territorial integrity is essential to liberating the Ukrainian people from Russian occupation. Accepting anything less than Ukraine’s liberation of its people is an implicit endorsement of Russia’s illegal occupation of more than five million Ukrainians», – the ISW report says.