Yet More Reporting Shows the Ukraine War Was Avoidable

Following the Maidan coup of 2014, the two regions of Donbas held referenda on some form of autonomy and a civil war ensued. The best available chance for peace was offered by the Minsk agreements, brokered by France and Germany, agreed to by Ukraine and Russia, and accepted by the U.S. and UN in 2014 and 2015. This gave Ukraine the opportunity to keep its territory and Donbas the means to protect its ethnic Russian culture by peacefully remaining part of Ukraine with a new level of autonomy.

But the opportunity was missed. 

According to Putin biographer Philip Short, Ukraine’s then-President Pyotr Poroshenko would later confess that the arrangement envisaged by Minsk was never meant to be implemented. Poroshenko told the Ukrainian media and other news outlets that Kiev’s goal for Minsk was “to delay the war—to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” He says that it worked: “We had achieved everything we wanted.” The “great diplomatic achievement,” Poroshenko told the Financial Times, was that, though Ukraine “didn’t have an armed forces at all… we kept Russia… away from a full-sized war.

Poroshenko’s account has been corroborated by his Minsk partners. Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s then-President François Hollande have both said they saw Minsk as giving Ukraine the time and space to strengthen its military before another conflict with Russia. 

Even after the 2022 invasion, there was still a chance for peace. Within days, before most of the death and destruction had occurred, contact was made and talks were held between the two sides, first in Belarus and then, most promisingly, in Istanbul.

The historical record suggests that, while Ukraine and Russia were considering an agreement, and were potentially close to an agreement, the U.S. and UK pushed Ukraine off the diplomatic path to peace, and another possibility for peace was missed. 

Recent revelations have added evidence to the already overwhelming case. 

The first testimony comes from the Ukrainian former MP Vadym Novinsky. In an interview with Stana, he provides previously unknown details of the earliest negotiations of the war. He says that on February 24, at the end of the first day of the Russian invasion, he advised David Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party who led the Ukrainian negotiating team in Belarus and Istanbul, to immediately contact Moscow to begin negotiations. There hadn’t been many deaths yet, “and it was possible to try to turn the situation around.”

Novinsky says that on February 25, he was contacted by the head of one of Ukraine’s intelligence agencies, who requested that he begin to organize negotiations. The intelligence chief said that the request came from the president of Ukraine. Within minutes, Novinsky was talking to Zelensky. Novinsky says that he succeeded in organizing the first talks in Gomel, a city in Belarus near the Ukrainian border. 

Novinsky says that the agenda included three main points. The most important was Russia’s insistence that the clause on Ukraine’s NATO aspirations be removed from its constitution and be replaced by one asserting “non-aligned status and neutrality.” The second was that Ukraine would recognize Crimea’s “special status” but not “as part of the Russian Federation” for 30 years. The third was that Ukraine would recognize “a special status” for Donbas. There could be negotiations about Donbas remaining in Ukraine. At this point, there was “still the option of keeping Donbas within Ukraine… within a framework of a confederal union.”

Novinsky says that he “coordinated every point with President Zelenskyy. And he agreed to everything then.” The process of developing the agreement lasted the month leading up to the Istanbul talks.

The striking thing about Novinsky’s testimony is that, if true, Russia was prepared in the first month of the war to trade a potentially intact Ukraine for a promise not to join NATO. But perhaps most astonishing it the revelation that it was not Russia that backed away from diplomacy—it was Ukraine. When asked by the interviewer why the Istanbul process failed, Novinsky responded, “I am absolutely certain that it was the fault of our leaders.” He says Boris Johnson, UK prime minister at the time, may have been involved, or it could have been “Zelensky himself”; but, in any case, it was the Kiev leadership that walked away from the diplomatic path to peace.

A similar story is told by a new report of a previously unknown back channel that was opened several months later. According to reporting by the Financial Times, the American lawyer Richard Conn and the American investment banker Bob Foresman managed to open a diplomatic back channel by reaching Russian President Vladimir Putin through a former East German spy named Matthias Warnig and Zelensky through a Ukrainian film maker who had, reportedly, already helped set up the promising peace talks in Istanbul months before. According to Short’s biography of Putin, Warnig arranged for Putin’s wife’s medical exam when she was badly injured in a car accident and was “one of the very few foreigners admitted to Putin’s inner orbit.”

The team conveyed a message to Putin from the senior director for Russia on the U.S. National Security Council, Eric Green, to the effect that Washington was neither pursuing regime change nor trying to destroy Russia—its aim was to broker a piece. The message, Green said, came from directly the White House.

In an interview with The American Conservative, Foresman said that Conn had communicated with Green extensively. There was a dangerously low level of communication between Washington and Moscow. Foresman says that Green made it clear to Conn that the White House “acknowledged and encouraged” the back channel and that they felt it was “constructive.” The team felt there was no question that the U.S. government encouraged the back channel.

Putin sent a message back, saying he had “no choice but to conduct military operations” but that he was “very open to negotiations.” Foresman told TAC that Warnig had a uniquely close relationship to Putin, and that he assured them that Putin was serious about his willingness to negotiate.

He wanted the talks to be elevated to the level of his own aide, Yuri Ushakov, and Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The Wall Street Journal soon reported that Sullivan did hold confidential conversations with Ushakov “in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.”

Russia’s position had hardened by now, but was still far more favorable to Ukraine than any offer that remains on the table today. Russia would pull back to its prewar position. Ukraine would recognize de facto Russian control of Crimea, but, according to Ukrainian opposition MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, who has confirmed the Financial Times story, would not have to de jure “recognize it as Russian.” Russia would return the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine and commit $300 billion in frozen assets to the rebuilding of Ukraine. The ceasefire would be ensured by protection from NATO states while Moscow began discussing a permanent security arrangement with Washington.

Once again, Putin said that Ukraine could not be allowed to join NATO. He had softened his position, though, and would not stand in the way of Ukraine joining the European Union. He was willing to discuss the suggested frozen line as well as a security arrangement based on the one discussed at the Istanbul talks. “If we can agree on the border and on NATO, then we can discuss everything else,” Putin reportedly told Warnig. 

By this account, Zelensky and his people barely looked at the offer and refused to make any concessions on Ukraine’s borders. The U.S. would also pass on the opportunity. According to Warnig, Sullivan had made it clear to Ushakov that the U.S. had not approved the back channel and that they saw no need for it. The rest is history.