Could the Ukraine War Have Ended Just Weeks In?

Russia Says It Was Ready To Sign Early Peace Deal, But West Blocked It – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blamed Western leaders For more Russian aggression This week in Ukraine

Speaking during a visit to Pretoria, South Africa, the  Russian official claimed that Russia Within weeks of the conflict, he was ready to end war.

“It is well known that we supported the proposal of the Ukrainian side to negotiate early in the special military operation, and by the end of March, the two delegations agreed on the principle to settle this conflict,” According to The Washington Post Lavrov claimed.

“It is also well known and was published openly that our American, British, and some European colleagues told Ukraine that it is too early to deal, and the arrangement which was almost agreed was never revisited by the Kyiv regime,” he continued.

Lavrov seemed to be referring specifically to talks that took part in Istanbul, Turkey in March.

Both the Turkish president and the Ukrainian president expressed hope at the time that negotiations would lead to an accord, while the Ukrainian president said the talks were showing promise. “positive” signs. However, negotiations ended and the possibility of a peace deal has become less likely.

Both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Russian President Vladimir Putin They have indicated their willingness to participate in negotiations.

Both sides insist, however, that talks cannot involve any ceding land to the other.

Ukraine is not only seeking to reclaim territory lost in the past year, but it also continues to push for Western assistance. taking back control of the Crimean peninsula.

In the meantime, the Kremlin says that negotiations can proceed as long Ukraine accepts this new agreement “reality” Russian Federation will absorb more of the land.

Did Boris Johnson Torpedo A Ukraine Peace Deal?

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson He has been criticized for his role in the rejection of a peace agreement with Russia by Ukraine in April last year.

August 2022 a Foreign Affairs piece Fiona Hill suggests that Russia had already reached an April tentative settlement with Ukraine. Hill mentioned several former U.S. officials that Russia had already agreed to a tentative settlement in April. This was when Russia regained control of some areas of the Donbas and all of Crimea. In return, Ukraine would not seek NATO membership.

However, the deal never materialized. The former prime minister was resigned in September. told the House of Commons The West should be wary about a peace agreement with Russia. “absolutely no sign” that Russia wants to reach a deal with Ukraine, and suggesting Russia couldn’t be trusted even if there was an offer on the table.

Reporting starting Ukrainska Pravda Also, it was suggested that the Russians were willing to meet with Zelenskyy or Putin. But two things prevented these discussions from occurring.

“But two things happened, after which a member of the Ukrainian delegation, Mykhailo Podoliak, had to openly admit that it was ‘not the time’ for the meeting of the presidents,” the outlet writes.

The first thing, Ukrainska Pravda says, was  the revelation of “atrocities, rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and hundreds and thousands of other war crimes committed by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.”

The article also claims the second. “arrived in Kyiv on 9 April.”

Sources close to the Ukrainian president said Johnson showed up in Kyiv almost without warning and brought with it two messages. The first message was that Vladimir Putin was a war criminal, and requires pressure, not negotiation. According to reports, the second was an insistence that Russia should not be allowed to sign any agreements even though Ukraine is willing.

Johnson was Johnson to blame for the deal’s failure? It’s hard to say. We can however say that credible reports indicate that the ex-prime minister of Britain did not believe Russia could trust him and that Russia’s crimes at this stage meant that any deal should be ruled out.

The comments by Russia’s foreign minister, therefore, try to paint Russia in a positive light and the West in a negative light. Technically, Lavrov could be correct when he said that the West had obstructed peace negotiations. The Russian foreign minister did not mention the rape, murder and other war crimes that Russian soldiers committed in the lead-up to the alleged Russian peace agreement.

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author and counter-extremism researcher, as well as a journalist based out of New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers examine these topics and offer pragmatic solutions for our increasingly polarized society.

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