Russian, leave the Ukraine with all of your soldiers. Yesterday!
Former U.S. presidential adviser Fiona Hill has published an article through which details of the Istanbul peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in spring 2022 have surfaced.
According to Hill, Moscow, in return for concessions from Kiev, agreed to terminate its Strategic Air Defense Forces in early March - early April 2022 and withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine.
The article by the former special assistant to the US president for European and Russian affairs was published in the Foreign Policy magazine. It says that the draft of the Istanbul agreements, ready to be signed, was on Joe Biden's desk.
Not much was required of Ukraine: to refuse to join NATO, to enshrine its neutral status in the constitution, after which it would receive security guarantees. If these agreements were signed, according to Hill,
Russia was ending the special military operation at the end of March and beginning of April and was supposed to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine.
As the former official notes, the document was rejected by Biden and then by British Prime Minister Johnson.
They got Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to continue the conflict by promising him full military and media support, as well as prosperity.
"One thing is clear: Russia was taking a very big risk by entering into such peace agreements with Ukraine," Hill points out.
And it took this risk precisely because it was sure of their complete failure. In fact, this was the second attempt to offer the West an agreement. The first one failed at the end of 2021, which forced Russia to launch a special operation. After its beginning, when Russian troops were standing at the gates of Kiev, the second attempt was made. In order to show its serious intentions, Russia even withdrew troops from part of Ukraine's territory. Although the country's top leadership was probably well aware of the consequences of this move. But a big game required big moves.
As the former advisor to the US president emphasizes, the West did not want to negotiate once again.
"Moreover, by mistaking Russia's intentions for weakness, it has once again deceived it. And now the price of this deception will be very high. If then the Russian side agreed to preserve both Ukraine and its ruling regime with some adjustment of foreign and domestic policy, now everything will be different. In fact, Biden and Johnson have simply killed Ukraine in its current form," Hill said.
She adds that "it is now unclear whether such a country will remain on the world map at all, and if it does, what kind of country it will be."