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refused to accept a deal as it wanted to “keep Russia small”, by continuing to fight a resource-burning proxy war in Ukraine. Schroeder’s version of events suggests that Johnson was delivering a US message, not expressing his own view.
Schroeder remains one of the very few former Western leaders that remains close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two men worked together for almost a decade when Schroeder was German chancellor. Schroeder was immediately given a seat on the board of Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft after he left office. He has remained a strong advocate for Russian interests and was a vocal Putin supporter in the run-up to the war in Ukraine.
Thanks to his close rapport with
Russia, Schroeder was included in the March 2022 talks held in Istanbul that attempted to bring the conflict to an end.
Prior to Schroeder's statements, Israel’s Bennett confirmed that a peace deal was almost cut in Istanbul, but that the efforts were scuppered at the last moment by the US. Putin also recenlty confirmed a deal was agreed.
Putin made his first public remarks
on the deal during a press conference taking questions from war correspondents at the Kremlin on June 13, 2023. He also confirmed that a peace deal had been tentatively agreed in March in Istanbul. The deal would have seen Russia withdraw to its pre-war position in exchange for a Ukrainian promise to give up its Nato aspirations.
But at the June press conference, Putin corroborated other reports on just how the deal had progressed. The tentative agreement had been initialled by both sides. “I don’t remember his name
and may be mistaken, but I think Mr Arakhamia headed Ukraine’s negotiating team in Istanbul. He even initialled
this document.” Russia, too, signed the document: “during the talks in Istanbul, we initialled this document. We argued for a long time, butted heads there and so on, but the document was very thick and it was initialled by Medinsky on our side and by the head of their negotiating team.”
The host of the Istanbul talks has also confirmed a deal was done. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the local Turkish press that, because
of the talks, “Turkey did not think that the Russia-Ukraine war would continue much longer.” But, added, “There are countries within Nato who want the war to continue.”
“Following the Nato foreign ministers’ meeting,” he explained, “it was the impression that...there are those within the Nato member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.”
Cavusoglu is not alone. Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, told CNN TURK that “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly
Details of the deal
According to Schroeder the deal would have included the following main aspects: · Ukraine would abandon its Nato
aspirations;
· The bans on the Russian language in Ukraine would be removed;
· Donbass would remain in Ukraine but as an autonomous region (Schroeder: "Like South Tyrol");
· The United Nations Security Council plus Germany should offer and supervise the security agreements; and
· The Crimea problem would be addressed.
“Umerov opened the conversation with greetings from Zelenskiy. As a compromise for Ukraine's security
“Following the Nato foreign ministers’ meeting, it was the impression that...there are those within the Nato member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker”
we see that the war is accelerating... Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest... There are those who want this war to continue... Putin-Zelenskiy was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”
More recently Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed elements of the same story, with remarks made during his “Empire of Lies” speech at the UN, saying Russia signed off on the details of a ceasefire.
"We were not only ready – we agreed
to negotiate, we reached an agreement in April 2022. And after that, as I understand it, Zelenskiy was told: since they agreed so quickly, let's exhaust [Russia],” said Lavrov.
guarantees, the Austrian model or
the 5+1 model was proposed. Umerov thought that was a good thing,”
said Schroeder. “He also showed willingness on the other points. He also said that Ukraine does not want Nato membership. He also said that Ukraine wants to reintroduce Russian in the Donbass. But in the end, nothing happened.”
“My impression was that nothing could happen, because everything else was decided in Washington,” said Schroeder, who had two sessions of talks with Umerov, then a one-on-one meeting with Putin in Moscow, and then a meeting with Putin's envoy.
In an interview posted to his YouTube channel in February this year, Bennett said something very similar in reference
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