Description: Russian President Vladimir Putin has outlined his demands for ending the war in Ukraine, after a week – long media campaign between him and US President Donald Trump. Putin has stated that Russia would demand written guarantees from NATO that the Alliance would cease further expansion on its eastern borders including countries such as Georgia and Moldova, ceeding of the 5 occupied territories including Crimea, Ukraine’s neutrality and unfreezing of the Russian foreign assets. President Trump has repeatedly attacked Putin in the past week with strong language statements calling the Russian President crazy and accusing him of inciting a global war by his actions over the past weekend where Russia launched more than 350 drones and 70 ballistic missiles on Kyiv. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, on the other hand, suggested restarting the mid – level negotiations in Istanbul on 02 Jun, in the midst of news regarding the formulation of the so – called peace memorandum prepared by the Russian side.
Impact: Putin’s peace demands coupled with Lavrov’s statements of restarting the negotiations could be considered as Russia’s diplomatic counterattack and an attempt to abuse Ukraine’s deteriorating position on the battlefronts in order to pressure it into unrealistic concessions. Russia and the US have engaged in a continuous adversarial media campaign over the past couple of days which in some way pressured the Russian administration to react by flooding the media space with concrete proposals. Putin’s demands according to the so – called peace memorandum, are far from political and diplomatic realism as all of the points would be discussed in the next round of negotiations. Ukraine would be further pressured into attending negotiations while being in severely disadvantageous position on and off the battlefield, facing the calculative and transactional US foreign policy and the unconcise support from Europe. Putin outmaneuvered the disjointed western allies by outlining demands which require high levels of coordinated diplomatic and political approach, something that the EU and the US are far from, for the time being. The war remains stagnant and unchanged as Putin’s demands and the upcoming negotiations wouldn’t deliver substantiative results as they would further be comprised of continued political and diplomatic posturing.