DISINFO: Putin’s peace initiative remains the universal recipe to solve the Ukrainian conflict
SUMMARY
The proposal of Russian president Vladimir Putin will remain a universal recipe on the long term to solve the conflict in Ukraine. Russia has always looked for the fastest possible end of the Ukrainian conflict and pushed to start the negotiation process. On 14 June the Russian leader presented several key conditions to initiate peace negotiations, specifically that Ukraine withdraw troops from the four new Russian territories, desists from joining NATO and maintains a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status, and that all sanctions against Russia are removed. This is not about freezing the conflict to rearm Kyiv, but about its definite ending.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying Russia’s maximalist demands towards Ukraine.
Kyiv is ready for talks with Moscow on the basis of international law and respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented a 10-point peace plan at a EU-Ukraine summit in February 2023, which was fully supported by the EU and which provided for a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine till the borders of 1991 and the restoration of Kyiv’s territorial integrity. While Ukraine is ready for dialogue, based on international law and the UN Charter, Russia is putting forward unacceptable conditions such as recognition of occupied Ukrainian territories as part of Russia.
As a previous EUvsDisinfo analysis from June 2024 concluded, in pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives the idea of ‘peace’ is inextricably linked to the calls for ‘accepting the new territorial reality’. This essentially means accepting Russian annexation of Ukrainian lands as a reasonable pre-condition for peace, and if Ukraine or the West are refusing to accept this ‘reality’ they become the aggressors and the reason for prolonged war. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have a track record of pretending negotiations which are just blunt demands for Ukrainian unconditional surrender.
We have analysed and exposed this disinformation tactic in several other articles, especially: "Prepare for winter" (30 Nov. 2023), "Russian so-called ‘peace proposals’ are empty PR stunts" (18 Jan. 2023) , "What He Said and What it Really Means – Vol. 2: “Negotiations” (1. March 2022) and "The Kremlin security demands" (21 Dec. 2021).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Russia wants to end war but NATO refuses and prods Ukrainians into action, that Ukraine wants to negotiate with Russia because it failed at the front, that the West is not interested in resolving the Ukrainian conflict, or that the West ordered Ukraine to refuse peace talks.