After the failure in 2022, Putin was ready to postpone the issue of Crimea for 15 years - the media

According to the journalists, during the negotiations, both parties continued to work around the clock on a treaty that the heads of Ukraine and Russia could sign. In the spring of 2022, Kremlin head Vladimir Putin was ready to postpone the issue of Crimea for 15 years. About it writes Foreign Affairs. The material states that on March 29, Ukraine and Russia have achieved a "breakthrough" in negotiations. Following the meeting, the parties announced that they had agreed on a joint communique.

The document contains a provision that calls on both parties to seek peacefully resolve the dispute over Crimea in the next 10-15 years. Before that, Moscow never agreed to discuss the status of the peninsula. "In proposing to negotiate its status, the Kremlin has silently acknowledged that it was wrong," the newspaper wrote.

The material states that during the negotiations, both parties continued to work around the clock on the treaty, which Putin and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to sign. Ukraine and Russia were actively exchanging projects with each other. According to the journalists, the projects of the treaty, which could be concluded by Ukraine and Russia during the negotiations at the beginning of a full -scale invasion of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, came to their hands.

They studied two of these projects: one from April 12, the other from April 15. Documents are largely similar, but there are important differences - and both show that the communique did not solve some key issues.

It is reported that while the communique and the project dated April 12 were clearly clear that garants would decide on their own whether to help Kiev in the event of an attack on Ukraine, in the project of April 15, the Russians tried to undermine this article, insisting that such Actions will only take place "on the basis of a decision agreed by all guarantees. " According to journalists, it would give a probable invader the right to veto.

The Ukrainians rejected this amendment, insisting on the initial formula, according to which all guarantees had an individual obligation to act in addition, as reported in the material, in the project there are a number of articles that were added to the contract at the insistence of . They concerned the issues that Ukraine refused to discuss. It is a ban on "fascism, Nazism, neonacism and aggressive nationalism.

" Journalists suggested that these provisions were supposed to allow Putin to "keep their face". The publication writes that the size and structure of the Ukrainian army were also the subject of intensive negotiations. As of April 15, both sides remained far from each other. Ukrainians wanted to have a peacetime army of 250,000 people, but the Russians insisted on a maximum number of 85,000 people. In addition, Ukraine wanted 800 tanks, and the Russian Federation "allowed" to have only 342 tanks.

The difference between rocket rates was even more significant: 280 kilometers (Ukrainian position), and only 40 kilometers (Russian position). According to the journalists, the negotiations deliberately bypassed the issue of borders and territory. The idea was expected to solve Putin and Zelensky at the planned summit. "Despite these significant differences, the project of April 15 suggests that the contract will be signed within two weeks," the newspaper writes.