The original “peace treaty” between the Russian Federation and Ukraine has been published. This is terrible for Latvia

Soon following the full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022, unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a truce began – first, Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in a small Belarusian town near the border, followed by negotiations in Istanbul under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As everyone knows, these negotiations did not lead to anything – it quickly became clear that Russia was making impossible demands on Ukraine, and the negotiating position of the Ukrainian delegation (which included, among other things, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov, chairman of the largest parliamentary faction David Arakhamia, the then adviser to the presidential chancellery Alexey Arestovich, etc.) was increasingly intensified by the news of Russia’s losses at the front.

Unlike other similar cases, there was no ceasefire during the negotiations, so Russia began to suffer losses following the initial success until it was forced out of the Kyiv, Sumy, Chernigov and Kharkov regions.

Now “Die Welt” refers to a 17-page draft “peace agreement”, which was drawn up in Russian and agreed upon by the parties before April 15, 2022. The main points that Russia wanted to achieve:

— Complete and permanent military neutrality of Ukraine: non-participation in NATO or any other military alliances and the absence of mutual defense agreements with any third country.

— Preventing the arrival of soldiers of any other country on its territory and not providing access to the military infrastructure of Ukraine (including airports and seaports) to the army, air force and navy of any country. Ukraine is not trying to restore its nuclear potential, does not buy nuclear weapons technology or develop it itself.

— Ukraine does not participate in any joint military exercises with any country, and also does not participate in any military conflicts of other countries in any capacity (it is unclear whether this was also a ban on Ukrainians at least participating in peacekeeping operations).

— At the same time, Crimea and Sevastopol are excluded from the supposed neutral regime (that is, Ukrainian neutrality does not apply when Moscow needs to deploy Black Sea Fleet forces on Ukrainian territory).

— Russia demands that all armed forces of Ukraine be reduced to 85 thousand personnel (a quarter of a million were already fighting in Ukraine at that time), leaving only 342 tanks, 1029 other armored vehicles, a total of 519 guns, 102 combat aircraft and 35 helicopters, as well as 2 warships throughout the Black and Azov Seas.

— Moscow demanded that “fascism and Nazism in Ukraine” be banned, despite the fact that they have always been illegal in Ukraine since 1944.

— Introduce bilingualism and give the Russian language the status of a second state language.

Of course, Russia had no intention of leaving the occupied territories and insisted that the occupation line be discussed by Putin and Zelensky personally. It goes without saying that in this “hellish peace treaty” Russia did not provide for any obligations for itself.

As guarantees of this agreement, it was planned to involve permanent members of the UN Security Council (USA, UK, France, China and – no matter how absurd it may sound – Russia itself), as well as Belarus and Turkey.

If, when discussing the future of the army, navy and air force, the Ukrainian delegation was still haggling regarding the possible neutral status of their country and security guarantees, then, as Die Welt comments, the demand for the status of the state language for the Russian language was the last straw that put an end to a possible agreement.

“For all my interest in the history and experience of military service, I do not know of a single case where the attackers actually asked the victims to begin negotiations for a truce on the evening of the first day of the attack,” A. Arestovich joked in the summer of 2022, during the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive. But now Russia’s “proposed peace terms” can be seen in a different light.

Until now, we have assumed that Russian statements regarding the “rebirth of fascism” and “neo-Nazis in Ukraine” are attempts to attribute to Ukraine in public rhetoric concepts that have a clearly negative meaning in the West, thereby denigrating opponents. However, the fact that in the draft 17-page agreement Russia seriously asks Ukrainians to “ban fascism” shows that Russia itself actually believes that “neo-Nazism and the resurgence of fascism” is happening in its neighboring country and bases the invasion on such a premise.

Also, attempts to impose catastrophic reductions in the army, navy and air force on Ukraine show that Russia itself takes its slogans regarding the “demilitarization of Ukraine” seriously and acts in accordance with them in the literal sense. Also, Russian policy seriously believes that the Ukrainians may want to once more place nuclear weapons on their soil and will be ready to buy technologies for their development from abroad, which must be urgently prevented – and such a probability (according to the Kremlin) is so great , which justifies military intervention.

Seeing how propagandists have been ranting in the public space for a year now, trying to “sell” these fictions regarding “neo-Nazism and demilitarization of Ukraine” to Russian voters and taxpayers, one can appreciate the huge cognitive dissonance between propaganda and reality. However, it turns out that the version that the Kremlin is feeding the people with militant propaganda is incorrect, but the Russian leaders themselves adequately understand the situation and act in a hidden rational manner. Quite the contrary – the Kremlin acts on the basis of its irrational fictions and slogans not based on reality, trying to realize its fictions in the literal sense and rejecting the facts observed in nature. While intercepted telephone conversations of Russian soldiers throughout 2022 showed Russian soldiers calling home from Donbass and saying: “We turned out to be fascists, not Ukrainians,” the Kremlin meanwhile tried to impose “demilitarization and denazification” on Ukrainians.

This is very bad news for Latvia. If the Kremlin has a completely distorted view of Ukraine, with a population of 40 million, Moscow will have an even more false view of Latvia, with a population of two million. And the fact that Russia is trying to literally impose its own invented goals on Ukraine, which are not connected with reality, gives reason to assume that the same thing will happen to Latvia.

Therefore, the Kremlin’s accusations that “Russian speakers are being oppressed in Latvia” should be taken literally. The Kremlin really thinks so and believes that the requirement for people living in Latvia to know the state language is “oppression” that can justify a military invasion. By accusing Latvians of “aggressive nationalism” and “NATO expansion,” the Kremlin – as in the case of Ukraine – seriously believes that this is grounds for an invasion of the neighboring country. Repetition from time to time of absurd statements that “NATO expanded to the east, although it once promised Gorbachev not to do so” (this is a complete fabrication – such a thesis cannot be found in any document, agreement, minutes of conferences, joint communiqués or even participants these events in private memories), and demanding that NATO “return to the borders of 1997,” Putin takes these slogans literally, and not as part of public rhetoric.

Likewise, encroaching on any piece of occupied territory is bad news for Latvia: if Russia decides to invade the Baltic states and occupies even a few hectares, it will not leave that territory under any circumstances. No negotiations in Istanbul, protocols in Minsk or condemnation from the UN rostrum will help here, as evidenced by ten years of harsh experience in Ukraine.