The secret document that could have ended the war in Ukraine

A few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, a peace agreement could have been reached. The terms of the end of the war are set out in a 17-page draft agreement, which the parties agreed to on April 15, 2022. Russia has asked Ukraine for neutrality, a limit on the number of troops, weapons, equipment and aircraft. The occupied territories were supposed to remain within the borders of Russia. Die Welt published part of the document it has.

Only a few points remained disagreeable, and they were supposed to be discussed personally by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit, but that never happened.

The Welt publication notes that immediately after the outbreak of the war, the Russian and Ukrainian sides began negotiations to end hostilities. Moscow has tried to force Kiev to surrender to the negotiating table.

In this agreement, Ukraine committed to maintain "permanent neutrality". Thus, Kiev renounces any membership in military alliances. In this way, the country's accession to NATO had to be ruled out.

Ukraine is committed to never "receive, produce or acquire" nuclear weapons, not to allow foreign weapons and troops into the country, and not to grant access to its military infrastructure, including airports and seaports, to any other country.

In addition, Kiev is obliged to refrain from conducting military exercises with foreign participation and from participating in military conflicts. According to Article 3 of the document, nothing prevents Kyiv from becoming a member of the EU.

In response, Russia pledged not to attack Ukraine again. To give Kiev confidence in this, Moscow has agreed that the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Britain, France, China and Russia itself - can provide Ukraine with comprehensive security guarantees. In Article 5 of the draft treaty, Kiev and Moscow agree on a mechanism reminiscent of the NATO assistance provision.

In case of "armed attack against Ukraine" guarantor countries undertake to support Kyiv in its right to self-defense, enshrined in the UN Charter, for a maximum period of three days. This assistance can be done through "joint action" of all or individual forces of the guarantor parties. The treaty had to be ratified by each signatory state in accordance with international law.

In this way, the two countries have developed a mechanism that differs significantly from the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. At that time, Russia had already guaranteed Ukraine its territorial integrity. Western countries promise Kiev support in case of attack, but do not guarantee it.

However, the security guarantees, which are being considered in the spring of 2022, had to be approved by the US, China, the UK and France in a second stage.

Russia also wanted to include Belarus, and Kiev wanted to include Turkey. However, the first goal of the negotiators in Istanbul was to create unity between Kyiv and Moscow in order to use the text as a basis for multilateral negotiations.

Crimea and the port of Sevastopol should have been excluded from security guarantees. In this way, Kiev practically ceded control over the peninsula to Russia.

It is not clear from the document exactly which part of eastern Ukraine was to be excluded from the promise of the guarantor states. The corresponding places are marked with red checkmarks. In the Istanbul Communiqué, Kiev is said to have agreed to exclude parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Russia controlled even before the start of the war. The Russian delegation, on the contrary, insisted that the borders be determined personally by Putin and Zelensky and be drawn on a map. The Ukrainian delegation rejected this option.

Russia has demanded that in the event of an attack, all guarantor states agree to activate the aid mechanism. That would give Moscow the right to veto overturning the safeguard mechanism. Moscow has also rejected Ukraine's request that guarantor states be able to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine in the event of an attack.

During the negotiations, Russia signaled its readiness to withdraw from Ukraine, but not from Crimea and parts of the Donbass, which were supposed to be excluded from security guarantees. Putin and Zelensky should have discussed the details of the withdrawal directly. This was confirmed to Die Welt by two Ukrainian participants in the negotiations independently of each other.

The issue of the size of the Ukrainian army in the future was also unresolved. Kiev has partially responded to Russia's demands for demilitarization. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine's army be reduced to 85,000 soldiers - it now has about one million soldiers. Ukraine has proposed a troop size of 250,000 soldiers.

Opinions also differed on the amount of military equipment. Russia wanted to reduce the number of tanks to 342, while Kiev wanted to keep it to 800. Ukraine wanted to reduce the number of armored vehicles to 2,400 units, while Russia wanted to keep only 1,029 units.

There was also a big difference in terms of artillery installations. Moscow planned 519 and Kiev 1,900. Kiev wanted to keep 600 multi-purpose missile launchers with a range of up to 280 km, while Russia said it should have 96 with a maximum range of 40 km.

In addition, Russia has asked to destroy the Ukrainian aviation.

Moscow has asked to keep 102 fighter jets and 35 helicopters, while Kiev has insisted on 160 planes and 144 helicopters. According to the Russian ideas, there should have been two warships, while according to the Ukrainian ones - eight.

According to German journalists, the draft agreement shows how close Ukraine and Russia were to a possible peace agreement in April 2022. But after the promising summit in Istanbul, Moscow made the following demands, which Kiev did not agree to.

As a result, Russia has demanded that the Russian language be made the second state language in Ukraine, that mutual sanctions be lifted and that international court cases be ended. Kiev was also supposed to legally ban "fascism, Nazism and aggressive nationalism".

Welt has learned from several diplomats involved in the talks that there is strong interest in concluding a treaty in the spring of 2022. After the failed offensive against Kiev, Russia withdrew from northern Ukraine and said it wanted to focus on acquiring territory in the east part of the country.

Die Welt quoted an unnamed member of the Ukrainian delegation as saying: "It was the best deal we could make." The publication believes that even after more than two years of war, the agreement still looks profitable in retrospect.

"Ukraine has been in a defensive position for several months and is suffering heavy losses.

In retrospect, Ukraine was then in a stronger negotiating position than it is now. If the war had ended about two months after it began, it would have saved countless lives.

Negotiators at the time predicted that Zelensky and Putin would sign the document in April 2022.

Die Welt writes that David Arahami, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, hinted in November 2023 why the two leaders never met. Then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev on April 9 and declared that London "would not sign anything" with Putin and that Ukraine should continue to fight. Johnson later rejected this thesis. However, there is reason to believe that the proposal to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in agreement with Russia has failed at this stage.