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Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
@DrRadchenko
Aug 27, 2019 • 9 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
Spent a few days in the Crimea, not on government invitation, so free to explore. Conclusions:
1) Massive government infrastructural investments. Locals complain of outrageous corruption but note corruption under Ukraine (with little investment);
2) Overwhelming support for Russia. Locals recounted their enthusiastic involvement in the pre-annexation referendum. Russian flags flying everywhere, etc. If another referendum were held today, it is inconceivable that it would result in a vote for Ukraine.
3) Sanctions were felt. Oddly, Russian mobile operators treat Crimea as a foreign country (for roaming purposes). Foreign cards proved useless. Crimea's is a cash economy, and will likely remain so.
4) Many locals secretly hold on to their Ukrainian passports.
- "Why?"
- "Just in case."
5) Ukrainians are selling their vacation homes in Crimea but the slack is being taken up by scores of Russians (from Siberia etc) buying vacation homes.
6) There seems to be considerable seasonal workforce from Ukraine that continues to service Crimea's vacation industry.
7) No happy end to this story. Crimea is not "returning" to democratic Ukraine any time soon, or ever. This should probably be taken as a starting point for a regional settlement.
One could argue that non-recognition keeps this hope alive, as in the case of the Baltics (their annexation by the USSR was never recognised by the West). But the parallel is a weak one, mainly because Crimea is populated by ethnic Russians.
What else to say? Worth visiting, just to get a better grasp on the political realities.

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More from @DrRadchenko

Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
May 16
A few thoughts on the Putin-Xi presser.
1) Xi described his conversation with Putin as "frank, friendly, and substantive". "Frank" is the usual codeword for disagreements; "friendly" suggests that disagreements were nevertheless secondary to the broader alignment of views. Image
2) "Friendship forever" Image
3) A short bit on Israel/Gaza: immediate action to end the fighting, a two-state solution. Image
Read 8 tweets
Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
May 2
An interesting thread, which comes to different conclusions about the March-April 2022 peace talks than @scharap and I do in our article. There are several problematic aspects to this thread. I'll point out three.
First this. @dszeligowski claims that "it is not ... true that Russia agreed to Ukraine's accession to the EU." He then corrects himself by saying that "it expressed its consent in principle, but subject to conditions that Ukraine rejected."
Sadly @dszeligowski does not provide any evidence for this claim. Our article, on the other hand, was based on the wording of the communique, which we cited, and on the wording of Art. 3 of the draft treaty, which noted that Ukraine's neutrality was "compatible" with Ukraine's possible membership in the EU.
Read 9 tweets
Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
Apr 20
So allow me to respond to this in detail because this is very interesting.

First, the argument that "I know quite a few people in the loop and everyone of them disagrees with the article" is completely unconvincing, and can be easily countered with the following equally unconvincing argument: "I know quite a few people in the loop, many of them directly involved in the negotiations, and everyone of them thinks the article is spot on."

Now that the unconvincing arguments have been presented upfront, let's turn to a more serious discussion.
First, about the article.
Our article with @scharap constructs a very complex set of arguments, so if you agree or disagree with the article, it's useful to explain what aspect of the argument you agree or disagree with.

- That at the negotiators prepared the text of a draft treaty on security guarantees that provided for Ukraine's permanent neutrality, which had a number of issues still unresolved, which we meticulously elaborate in the article?

- That the negotiations continued for weeks after Bucha and Irpin, which unambiguously suggests that Bucha and Irpin did not lead to the breakdown of negotiations, even if the Russian atrocities steeled Zelensky's resolve to continue the fight?

- That nevertheless the negotiations broke down eventually, and that was for the three reasons we elaborate, including the prospects of winning the war (which seemed brighter after the Russians retreated from Kyiv)?

- That the Ukrainians counted on a Western buy-in in the security guarantees process, and that it wasn't forthcoming for reasons that we explain?

- That Boris Johnson did *not* force Ukraine to abandon negotiations, and that the claim that he did is a caricature (the word we use in the article)?

- That the Ukrainians had not consulted with the US on the US buy-in before Istanbul?

- That the draft treaty contained a number of interesting ideas, proposed by the Russians, about changing specific Ukrainian laws on historical memory and language, and that these proposals amounted to a face-saving measure that would cover Putin's insistence on "nenazification"?

- That while we don't know whether Putin and Zelensky negotiated in good faith, it is at least conceivable that the negotiators themselves thought so because an advanced version of the draft and the multiple attached protocols point to a serious negotiation?

So which one of these arguments do the esteemed experts disagree with? All of them? Good. But at least we have the evidence upon which we rest our claims.
Now to the Polish role.
The screenshot presented here by @dszeligowski (evidently posted to highlight that the author of the thread knows his stuff) actually supports our narrative. It is an early version of the draft treaty on security guarantees. In fact, it appears to predate the Istanbul communique, and is dated March 16, 2022 (so that's immediately after the March 14 Zoom meeting between the delegations, the one when @Podolyak_M commented: "The sides are actively expressing their positions, which have already been clarified. Communication continues, albeit with difficulty" ().

So we can see that this document (which is similar in format to the later drafts that we have seen, although this one is in English), was being passed around, including to the Poles (we do say, on the basis of our evidence, that it was being passed around, since Naftali Bennett and Lukashenko have both claimed seeing drafts).

In any case, what would be interesting is to have the entire document, similar to what we had, so that one can compare the similarities and differences to the later versions and see what concessions were made and by whom. If @dszeligowski can prevail on his friends to share the entire document, then this would usefully contribute to the scholarly discussion and help map out the negotiations process with greater detail. As a historian, I would personally welcome this, though I fully understand that it's unlikely because there are issues here around trust between parties (in this case Ukraine and Poland). Eventually we'll find out more!pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2022/…
Read 4 tweets
Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
Apr 17
Hmm okay well let's address this (with apologies to @slantchev, I overlooked the original critique). I now found it: .
This long thread is actually contradictory. Thus, here @slantchev argues that the Ukrainians were negotiating in good faith (I would agree btw). However, later in the same thread, he claims that the Ukrainians were simply trying to deflect the blame for the failure of the talks.
Image
Image
The latter, of course, would be the definition of bad faith. But, as I mentioned, I don't agree with @slantchev, and I do think it's a) - keeping in mind, of course, that the Ukrainians were in a terrible predicament. This may well explain the lack of coordination with the West.
Read 11 tweets
Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
Apr 17
It's time to address some of the points raised by the esteemed commentariat. But, first of all, thank you for your engagement. @scharap and I expected that the article would be of interest, and we were certainly not disappointed.
This thread here by @dszeligowski was interesting, I thought. . Poland's role in the talks is indeed worth exploring. I would say Poland's role in the Ukrainian calculus was not all that important, however. The US loomed (and continues to loom) much larger, so it's hardly surprising that we skirted Poland's role. Turkey was another player that clearly had a very important role in the story. We do not have enough information, however, to offer definitive conclusions about what that role might have been.

It has to be kept in mind that the article is in any case twice (or more?) the length of regular Foreign Affairs articles, and there are many stories and angles that we simply had no space for, including such tantalizing episodes as the (alleged) poisoning of the Ukrainian delegation, Abramovich's role, etc, etc. We are grateful to @ForeignAffairs for giving as much space as they did: it's a long read!

On the other hand, some statements in the thread are based on nothing but conjecture. Thus, "Russia never abandoned its maximalist goal. Realising that the plan to seize Kyiv "in three days" had failed, Moscow wanted to subjugate Ukraine at the negotiating table, but missed the moment when the fortune turned in favour of Ukraine and they were thrown out from Kyiv region."

It's incorrect because the Russians began negotiations while the offensive was only just beginning. The demands they made were for Ukraine's capitulation. However, their position softened and demands were modified once it became clear that the offensive was failing. Moreover, the notion that "Russia never abandoned its maximalist goal" is based on pure conjecture. Our purpose in this article was to steer clear of conjecture and indicate uncertainty where we were uncertain, e.g.:Image
Ok, let's address some of the other criticism. Some have argued that the fact that Putin appointed Medinsky as the head of the delegation indicates that he was not seriously interested in negotiations because Medinsky was not senior enough / a demagogue / a clown (choose your favorite). The problem with this interpretation is that the decision-making structure in the Kremlin is impossibly opaque. We have to move away from simplistic assertions (that overtime acquire the character of unimpeachable truths) that such-and-such a person matters to Putin while someone else does not. Suffice it to say that in Russia a person's political influence or access to Putin is not necessarily tied to his or her official position in the hierarchy. For example, we know that Abramovich was involved in the talks - and he is not even in the government.

An honest analyst will simply say that he/she does not know why Putin appointed anyone in particular to lead the talks. Maybe this was significant, and maybe it wasn't, and it's also possible that the talks were simply a charade to begin with, but may have acquired a more serious character with time, and at that point Putin did not want to change the head of the delegation for any number of reasons. In short, I don't see Medinsky's appointment as an OMG smoking gun argument that would indicate that the Kremlin did not take the talks seriously, though it may well point in that direction (with other arguments adequately accounted for).
Read 9 tweets
Sergey Radchenko Profile picture
Apr 16
Foreign Affairs published today the results of a most fruitful collaboration between @scharap and yours truly, an article on the failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine (March-April 2022). .foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-…
The main takeaway: it's complicated. The talks indeed produced important documents, which we saw and analyzed. There are some remarkable revelations in these drafts.
It does appear that Russia and Ukraine were seriously and earnestly negotiating an end to the war, which could have come as early as late April 2022 if the talks succeeded. They failed. We tried to understand why.
Read 5 tweets

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