Who has the latest news on the coming peace in Ukraine? India’s WION. Not CNN, not the FT!
This morning at 8am I got a phone call from India’s largest global television broadcaster in English, WION, requesting an interview to discuss points made by Vladimir Putin yesterday in a remarkable interview which he gave to his ‘shadow,’ reporter Pavel Zarubin of state television channel Rossiya 1, while traveling in his Aurus limousine from Moscow to Samara, where he had several speaking engagements.
Putin elaborated in his chat with Zarubin on the circumstances surrounding the nearly consummated negotiations in April 2022 to end the war on mutually acceptable terms a little more than a month following the start of hostilities and thus to avert the carnage and destruction that has occurred since. He also commented on the obstacles to be overcome now if a cessation of hostilities and start of peace talks are to be undertaken again, as Donald Trump has been insisting. The single biggest obstacle is the continuation in office of Volodomyr Zelensky, per President Putin.
If this position statement by Putin is not newsworthy this morning, what is? Have Putin’s remarks been reported by The New York Times, by The Financial Times, by CNN so far? No!
Here and now, let us go over the points made by Putin yesterday. When the video of my interview with WION is sent to me, today or tomorrow, I will post it separately.
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Firstly, Vladimir Putin yesterday gave a more detailed timeline of what preceded the peace talks at the very end of March and start of April, 2022. As we know, Russian forces had fought their way south from Belarus, where they were stationed before the 24 February invasion, to the very outskirts of Kiev. Zelensky told the Kremlin that this threat to the survival of his government had to be moved back for negotiations to begin. Accordingly Russian troops were withdrawn completely by 4 April. Some were returned to Belarus. Others went back to the Russian Federation. This concession was made as a calculated risk in the knowledge that the Ukrainians might trick them and not go through with negotiations.
In fact, the talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations did begin in Istanbul and within 10 days a lengthy draft treaty was agreed and was initialed by the heads of the respective delegations. As we know, this document provided for the neutrality of Ukraine, for its never joining NATO or allowing foreign troops and military installations to be located on its territory. It set limits to the Ukrainian armed forces such as would ensure it could not renew a war with Russia. It left Kiev in control of its Eastern provinces to the point of separation of forces at that time, meaning that negligible further territory would be lost compared to the situation at the start of the invasion. Only one condition was not agreed, said Putin, and this was to be negotiated directly between the two presidents before signing.
The documents were thus ready for signing on 14 April 2022. However, at this point Kiev asked for a one week ‘time out’ in order to consult with their allies. During this period, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev and persuaded Zelensky to scrap the draft treaty and to continue the war with support from its NATO friends until achieving the complete restoration of the country’s 1992 borders.
Yes, commented Putin, we were deceived. But we came to understand exactly with whom we were dealing. So be it.
Why would Putin have related this story now? My interpretation is that he is justifying his own insistence going back to his speech to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff in June 2024 that before ceasefire talks can begin Ukraine must withdraw its troops from the four oblasts which Russia has incorporated into its Federation though they were only partly in its possession: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhie. Today, this would also mean Ukraine’s withdrawal of its remaining forces in Russia’s Kursk oblast.
The second part of the interview which Putin gave to Pavel Zarubin yesterday concerned the question of with whom Russia can negotiate and sign cease-fire and peace agreements today. First, Putin raised the issue of a decree Zalensky promulgated six months after the April 2022 draft treaty was scrapped: this decree forbade any negotiations with Russia so long as Putin was in office. This decree is still in effect and given that Zalensky’s constitutionally set term in office expired many months ago, he does not have the power to revoke it. However, even if a legal solution could be found to that standing prohibition on negotiations, there remains the illegitimacy of Zalensky, so that his signature on any agreements which Russian and Ukrainian negotiators might reach would be worthless.
The logic of these arguments set out by Vladimir Putin yesterday is that Zalensky has to go and a new head of state installed before a cease-fire and peace treaty can be reached.
The points discussed above are not the totality of what Vladimir Putin said to reporter Zarubin that was broadcast on Vladimir Solovyov’s talk show last night. He also remarked that should the United States halt its shipment of arms to Ukraine now, the war would end in one or at most two months because the Ukrainian forces would not have the military materiel to continue.
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In closing, I offer a suggestion to Donald Trump and his entourage on how to react to these latest statements on the way forward: to just keep silent! What the President has been saying about the Ukraine war these past several days has been ill-informed and has only undermined his credibility as a potential peacemaker. It would be far better just to shut up and allow diplomats or some new personal emissary (not General Kellogg!) to pick up the loose ends from Vladimir Putin’s latest interview for talks behind closed doors.
Is Trump capable of such discretion? Yes, the way he is proceeding in great secrecy with outreach to Teheran with a level-headed and capable emissary is a model for how he should proceed now with Moscow.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025