With much less drama than its famous 1971 Pentagon Papers, the New York Times has disclosed three documents confirming that Russia and Ukraine were close to war-ending agreements in the first half of 2022, shortly after Moscow began its so-called ‘special operation’ attack on Ukraine, February 24, 2022.
The newspaper says it has obtained and verified three documents – draft versions of peace agreements negotiated by Moscow and Kiev in the first months of the Ukraine conflict.
Talks on the first agreement began as early as February 28 in Belarus but ended without result. Soon after, on March 10, the talks moved to Antalya in Turkey when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and spoke of a “systematic, sustainable solution” for Ukraine. On March 17 Ukraine proposed a draft peace treaty promising permanent neutrality, with security guarantees from the US, UK, France, Russia and China.
There was much unresolved debate over the nature of the guarantees, but........