Negotiation 'swings'

1. After initial skepticism, when it seemed everything had reached a deadlock and Trump even announced tariffs on India, the situation began to develop dynamically. It seems multilateral negotiations have been ongoing all this time. And the situation is changing, de facto, in real time.

"2. Trump will meet with Putin only if there is a real breakthrough. At the same time, it should be understood that the value of the meeting is different for Putin and Trump. It is clearly more important for Putin."

3. At this point, with high probability, we can talk about four basic U.S. proposals (which seem to be agreed upon with the EU in one way or another), although not everything is clear yet.

What are these proposals:

• Ceasefire roughly along the current front line, with occupied territories de facto recognized as Russian. The details of such recognition remain unclear. For now, it seems based on the "precedent" of occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which the West supposedly never recognized as Soviet, though this is only speculation.
• Ukraine does not join NATO. It is still unclear whether a mandatory neutral status is required (it seems the Russians will insist on this).
• Urgent presidential elections immediately after the agreement. It appears the previous demand to bar Zelenskyy from running is not being violated.
• Sanctions on Russia are lifted. At this point, this is the least clear issue — the timing and extent of lifting sanctions remain unknown. Most importantly, the logic behind it — these are Dmitriev’s proposals, where the U.S. guarantees access for Russian sanctioned goods to the European market under the American flag (so-called joint trade houses), or some other model, which is still unknown. The only thing known for sure is that the parties are negotiating the removal of sanctions.

4. There is no doubt that Russia will demand conditions regarding language and church (the format is still unclear).

5. At every stage, the agreement can fall apart for various reasons. So we continue living with these negotiation swings.

Source

About the author. Vadym Denysenko, political scientist.

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by blog or column authors.