Russia has put its price for ending the Ukraine war in writing, and the paper is not a ceasefire offer. Circulated at this week's talks in Abu Dhabi and obtained by The New York Times, it demands that NATO pull its troops and bases back to their 1997 positions, rule out any further expansion and end military activity in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Western arms supplies to Ukraine must stop. Britain and France must rule out using their nuclear weapons to defend other European countries. And Kyiv could join the European Union only if it stayed out of the bloc's common defence policy. A person involved in the talks handed the Times a copy of the unsigned paper, dated Tuesday, and a second person familiar with the negotiations confirmed it is genuine. It sets out Moscow's opening position.
Why it matters: this is the bill Moscow is presenting to President Donald Trump's peace push, days before he meets Vladimir Putin face to face in Shenzhen, China. Nothing in the paper offers America or its allies anything — every line asks the West to give ground. For the countries that joined NATO after 1997, the demand is not abstract: it would strip the alliance's protection out of their territory and leave them facing Russia alone. If this is the starting point, there is no quick end to the war.
The demands are not new — that is the point. The paper repeats many of Putin's December 2021 demands, in some cases word for word: the ultimatum Moscow issued two months before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now laid on the table again with new demands added. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that accepting Russia's terms would pose a direct threat to Poland's security.
In Abu Dhabi, the Russian side held up the Cold War itself as the model for how Europe could look once the war ends — an era when each side understood the other's sphere. It is a rare, plain look at what Moscow actually wants: not a pause in the fighting, but a Europe rearranged on Russia's terms.
The Abu Dhabi talks brought American, Russian and Ukrainian officials together in person for the first time since February. A U.S. official told the Times that Trump's envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, urged Moscow to put forward proposals that included concrete steps by Russia itself to ease tensions. Kushner and Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Thursday, and Putin told them Russia's 2021 proposal still reflected his approach to European security, according to his foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov. The envoys then briefed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin, where Kushner said any deal would require the Europeans to be at the table. Russian officials signalled that Putin could still show some flexibility beyond the paper.
Trump and Putin are due to meet next week at an Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen, for their second face-to-face meeting of Trump's current term. Whether Moscow moves off the 1997 line is now the whole question of that meeting — because on the paper as written, this is surely no deal.
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