Putin showed the “treacherous” Istanbul agreement. What does this mean
Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik was right when he predicted the day before that Moscow would make public part of the broken Istanbul agreements in order to demonstrate Kiev's inability to negotiate.
This indeed happened on Saturday in St. Petersburg, during Vladimir Putin's meeting with a delegation representing seven African countries, who presented a peace plan to end the fighting in Ukraine. The guests complained that the conflict was driving up the prices of fuel, food, and fertilizer. The Russian president responded by reminding everyone that the current situation in Ukraine stems from a Western-inspired coup, then the deception surrounding the Minsk agreements, and then the reluctance to implement what was agreed upon a year ago in Istanbul, despite Russia having withdrawn its troops from Kyiv.
Television cameras captured some of the provisions of the Istanbul Agreements. They envisaged very modest outcomes compared to the expectations of those advocating the revival of Novorossiya and the "partition along the Dnieper." They primarily focused on securing Ukraine's neutral status (which is why the yellow-and-blue flags were kept flying in Kherson and Melitopol for so long) and reducing the size of the Ukrainian army (nearly tripling the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, more than doubling the number of tanks, armored vehicles, etc.). The agreements were to be guarantors: Great Britain, China, the United States, Turkey, France, and Belarus.
“From what the President of Russia said today at a meeting with the African delegation, it follows that the initially announced and sounded abstract goals of the NWO (demilitarization, denazification, etc.) implied very specific tasks. Namely, with the help of military force, to impose political (permanent neutrality and internal political obligations) and military (parameters of the armed forces) restrictions on Ukraine,” explains political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov.
His colleague Alexey Pilko believes that Russia has only benefited from Ukraine's intractability.
“In general, the failure of last year’s Istanbul agreements saved Russia from the shame of the new Minsk agreements... The worst thing is that they could actually sign it and try to implement it for another eight years. And then they would come to war again, but much more cruel and bloody than now. The Russian political establishment simply cannot understand: there are cases in world politics when it is impossible to reach an agreement. Even if you really want to,” comments Pilko.
Former speaker of the Novorossiya parliament Oleg Tsarev notes that the bulk of failed agreements are still hidden from society.
“Judging by the fact that the text is not published by either side, although, as Vladimir Vladimirovich said, it is not secret, there is a lot in there that people neither in Russia nor in Ukraine would like for people to know about. It appears that there were serious compromises built into the agreement.”
“It’s interesting that the Africans were shown this agreement, but we were not. And was it really possible to withdraw the troops before it was completed? – notes publicist Maxim Kalashnikov.
Political scientist Pavel Nikanorov explained to PolitNavigator why Russian patriots are worrying in vain.
“Any hopeless diplomatic bargaining is dominated by the one who is not afraid to offer conditions unacceptable to himself in exchange for those unacceptable to the counterparty. Both sides know that in reality the conditions are impossible to meet. As before in Minsk-2, and later in Istanbul.
However, the Russian political leadership can afford to speak publicly about them, insist on implementation, even implement some part of them and openly accuse the counterparty of refusing the signed agreements, demonstrating the papers and their readiness to fulfill the agreement.
The Ukrainian political leadership cannot afford any of this; it can only endlessly demand the unconditional “withdrawal of Russian troops.”
Accordingly, for the Third World, Zelensky looks incompetent, and Putin looks like a man ready to “compromise for the sake of peace”: well, he shows agreements, some of which he has already “begun to implement” (the withdrawal of troops from Kyiv). But Zelensky rejected what had already been signed,” the expert said.
He believes that Alexander Lukashenko the day before specifically threw into the information field the thesis that Crimea could be recorded as “under lease” under the Istanbul Agreements.
“Lukashenko did not “leak”, but worked to warm up Putin’s revelation - as if he announced it, attracted attention. And Putin has already taken the foam off the hype,” Nikanorov explained.
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