Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposed peace talks with Ukraine will be based on the abandoned draft of a 2022 agreement and the fact that Russia controls nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
In a statement earlier in the day, Putin called for direct talks with Kiev to achieve lasting peace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the initiative but stressed that Russia must first agree to an immediate ceasefire.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the proposal was based on the "Istanbul Communiqué" - a draft prepared during talks between Moscow and Kiev at the beginning of the war. The talks began in Belarus after the Russian invasion in February 2022 and later moved to Istanbul, but were suspended in May of that year.
Under the draft, reviewed by "Reuters", Ukraine would commit to permanent neutrality and non-membership in NATO in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — as well as from countries such as Germany, Poland and Turkey. The proposal included guarantees that in the event of Russian aggression, Western countries would be obliged to intervene militarily to defend Ukraine.
The draft also envisaged facilitating Ukraine's path to membership in the European Union, while Russia insisted on restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces and the repeal of laws that Moscow considers discriminatory against Russian-speaking people.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff, sent by President Donald Trump, also pointed to the 2022 draft as a possible basis for future peace talks.
The issue of territories was secondary in the document to security guarantees, which diplomats from both sides identified as the main obstacle to an agreement.