These were not the only disagreements to emerge after March 29. The Ukrainians had proposed that the issues of Crimea and Sevastopol be left to bilateral negotiations for fifteen years. Arestovych still seems to be under the impression that the Russians had agreed to that proposal, which he thought was highly advantageous to Ukraine. But the Russians rejected that approach publicly in the first days of April. “Among our non-negotiable demands,” Medinsky later recalled, “were the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea [and] the recognition of the independence of the Donbass republics.” There was no prospect that Ukraine could have kept its eastern territories by agreeing to neutrality.

At that time, as later, this “land for peace” deal was stoutly opposed by some 80 percent of Ukrainians, so Zelensky’s ability to accept it was constricted even if he wanted to agree. Russia’s insistence on this point contradicts Gerhard Schröder’s idea that the Russians were prepared to give the Donbas a status like South Tyrol in their peace plan. The last thing that Putin could accept was the revival of Minsk II. Even Medinsky’s cautious acceptance of the framework Ukraine offered on March 29 was greeted with derision in domestic Russian opinion: “Medinsky did more damage in three minutes than all the Ukrainian propaganda in a month,” said one critic. 

On April 5, Lavrov expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the state of the negotiations. “If the Ukrainian delegation is going to continue to talk about the need for additional steps on the part of the Russian Federation, vehemently refuse (as it is doing now) even to discuss the goals of denazification and demilitarization and restoring Russian language rights, and insist that there are no problems with the Russian language or the rights of the Russian-speaking people and Nazification reaching all areas of that country’s life, I do not think this will be helpful in advancing the negotiating process.” 

Russia never signed on to the Istanbul Communique in its entirety. Russia’s own statements at the time contradict Putin’s recent assertion that “in Istanbul we agreed on everything.” Russia accepted the Ukrainian demarche as a positive first step that required further discussion and clarification. On April 7, Lavrov promised that the Russian answer, when it came, would spell out “all the key positions and demands very clearly and in full.” 

The April 15 Treaty

The Russian draft treaty was presented to Ukraine on April 15, 2022. This was the document that Putin waved in the air in his speech to African leaders in June 2023. Medinsky told the New York Times in May 2022 that Russia had submitted its own treaty draft at that time, so the existence of this document was known. Still, Putin’s intervention gave it a name—“The Treaty on the Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine.” Putin also inadvertently disclosed important details previously unknown.

When the draft treaty was submitted to the Ukrainians, ironically, the peace process had already broken down. On April 12, Putin himself declared the talks at a dead end. Russia never received an answer to its April 15 propositions. That the head of the Ukrainian delegation initialed the Russian draft, a fact on which Putin now lays great emphasis, meant only an acknowledgment that Ukraine had received it.

The most important revelation in Putin’s June 2023 speech came in the military annex, a separate one-page memorandum that recorded stark differences in the military forces to be allowed in Ukraine under the agreement (250,000 in the Ukrainian version, 100,000—of which 15,000 were reservists— in the Russian.) This showed that the parties were far apart on one of Russia’s key criteria for peace: demilitarization. At the time, too, Ukraine was mobilizing vast numbers of volunteers and reservists, with over 500,000 forces either in or soon-to-be-in arms. In his March 28 interview outlining Ukraine’s negotiating posture, Zelensky rejected demilitarization as unthinkable. Russia, in its draft treaty, continued to insist upon it.

Neither party has published nor leaked the April 15 draft treaty, which Putin claimed contained eighteen sections. Both sides may have been embarrassed by its contents. Putin said Russia “never agreed with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be confidential,” but he didn’t release it. Lavrov, however, had promised on April 7 a complete statement of the Russian position; the draft treaty doubtless fulfilled that promise while also incorporating those elements of the Istanbul Communique—Ukrainian neutrality, non-alignment, renunciation of nuclear weapons—that were to Russia’s liking. 

We must assume that the Russian draft treaty included an acknowledgment of Crimea’s membership in the Russian Federation and of the independence of the Donbas republics, with the territorial boundaries the DPR and LPR claimed in their 2014 referenda (only half of which they controlled before the war). We must also assume that the treaty included language mandating both demilitarization and denazification, which Zelensky had previously called deal-breakers and which were not part of the Istanbul Communique. How these propositions were framed is unknown, but the predominant sentiment among the Ukrainians likely saw them as intolerable infringements on their sovereignty. That’s one of the reasons they walked away from the Russian offer. They had others.

The Elusive Ceasefire

The Russians and the Ukrainians were also sharply divided over when a ceasefire would take place. For the Ukrainians, it was to happen immediately. It would entail the retreat of Russian forces to the February 23 lines, after which the two presidents would meet and agree to a treaty. For the Russians, a ceasefire would happen once the treaty had been executed to Russia’s satisfaction. This Russian posture set onerous but inherently ambiguous conditions for halting the fighting. The conditions, of course, never came close to being fulfilled. During the negotiating process, there was never a point when a ceasefire was “all but agreed.” 

On April 5, Lavrov rejected any notion of an imminent ceasefire; Russia wouldn’t play “the cat-and-mouse game” in which a ceasefire was given in exchange for nonbinding commitments. As Mercouris reported the Russian position on April 6: “The Russians intend to keep their troops in Ukraine beyond the borders, the territories of Donbas, in places like Kherson, Zaporozhye, and wherever until Ukraine not only signs but ratifies this treaty—which is one which the Russians insist must make fundamental concessions on the state of Crimea and Donbas and on the issues of demilitarization and denazification— and put those provisions fully into effect.”

A ceasefire put off until the treaty went into effect meant that Ukraine had to demilitarize before Russia agreed to a truce or withdrawal of its forces. According to the military annex, Ukraine would have to reduce its troops to 100,000 instead of increasing them to 500,000 or 1,000,000 (as it was furiously trying to do). The likelihood of such demilitarization in April 2022 was just about nil. Neither party could trust the other to fulfill its obligations. The danger that the other party would use a pause in fighting to augment its forces weighed on both sides. 

These factors point to the truism that it is much easier to stop a war from starting in the first place than to stop it once it has started. There is no evidence, in any case, that the parties had even begun discussions on the military deconfliction (across a 1200-kilometer front) that would need to occur in the event of a ceasefire. 

Given these manifest obstacles, it is difficult to see the basis for the claim that an agreement and a ceasefire were imminent at any point in April 2022. Valeriy Chaly, the Ukrainian diplomat who served on Ukraine’s delegation at the peace talks, recently claimed that the parties were very close to an agreement in mid-to-late April. Still, the assumption on which he rests this judgment is very questionable. 

A week into the war, says Ambassador Chaly, Putin had concluded he had made a big mistake and, hence, was ready to reverse course. Was that really Putin’s view? If it was, it was not reflected in Putin’s subsequent conduct or public statements at the time, which displayed a steely resolution that Russia’s war aims would be achieved. Just when Chaly said that Putin was feeling defeated, Russian military spokesmen were claiming to have Ukraine on the ropes and to have destroyed a tremendous amount of its military capacity. 

The logic of Chaly’s position is that Putin thought he was losing the war and would have to make critical compromises. Arestovych believed a similar dynamic was at work, with Russia retreating in late March on its diplomatic positions regarding demilitarization and denazification just as it withdrew from outside Kyiv. It is likely, however, that the treaty Russia presented on April 15 was based on the opposite calculation: that Ukraine was losing and would have to appease Russia or face continued war. These opposing understandings nixed any possibility of a ceasefire.

Johnson’s Visit and the U.S. Role

Critics of the U.S. role have emphasized the importance of Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv as the decisive event that turned Ukraine against a peace agreement. Western spokesmen, by contrast, have vehemently denied that the United States played any role in sabotaging the accords. “Utter bullshit,” a senior administration official told Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal. “I know for a fact the United States didn’t pull the plug on that. We were watching it carefully.” Boris Johnson, interviewed by the Times of London, agreed. “This is nothing but total nonsense and Russian propaganda.” In his April visit to Kyiv, Johnson recalled expressing deep skepticism of any Russian offer. He pledged “1000 percent” support for aiding Ukraine’s military resistance but didn’t tell Zelensky what to do.