Thread by @dszeligowski

🧵 This is already making rounds, so I will try to shed some more light on March/April 2022 Ukraine-Russia talks since the article is still far from the point, and because Poland played a much bigger role than anyone is willing to admit publicly
foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-…

You can easily Google this photo. This is just a tip of the iceberg

And you can easily Google this photo as well. Resemblance is purely coincidental (until it is not)

Charap & Radchenko rely heavily on the *Western* sources, but these were interesting times when our Western colleagues found themselves not being really in the loop, although they happily provide you with some post-factum interpretation today

We were never close to any deal. Russia never negotiated in good faith. Moscow sent a delegation that was composed of the most anti-Ukrainian officials you can imagine. Their goal was to present the Ukrainian side with an ultimatum, not to *negotiate*

https://twitter.com/dszeligowski/status/1497959957873967112?t=ox9ka5YI7FY5BMXdkBMkoA&s=19

During the talks, the Russian officials issued threats against members of the Ukrainian delegation and their families. This pretty tells you what the Russian attitude was at that particular time

While still in Belarus, the Russian delegation openly suggested to the Ukrainian delegation that they declare capitulation. Ukrainians responded with a now legendary sentence: иди на хуй (roughly: f* off)

The talks moved to Turkey then. On the plane, members of the Ukrainian delegation had symptoms of poisoning. Later on, test results proved an unknown chemical substance in the body of now Ukraine's Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov. Russians "sent a message" - we can get you

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

Unlike our Western colleagues, Poland believed from the beginning that the Russians were bluffing and so we advised accordingly our Ukrainian friends. We were in a pretty comfortable position to do it, since Polish SOF provided security for the Ukrainian delegation

Yes, Ukraine was ready to make concessions, but they were conditional on western security guarantees, which the West was ultimately not ready to give (one reason was that our western colleagues simply did not know much about the talks as such)

The talks collapsed because the Russians never negotiated seriously, and so they did not show due flexibility (contrary to what Charap and Radchenko claim). Russia demanded Ukraine's demilitarisation and aimed at sanctioning of Russian influence over Ukrainian domestic

And then Bucha came. The scale of Russian crimes was so huge that it shocked even the Polish side (which, after all, has experienced Russian atrocities itself). Further talks with Russia were simply no-go for Zelensky, especially that Russian troops were already on defensive

Ever since, Russians have argued that an agreement with Ukraine was close, but the West intervened, notably Boris Johnson, whom Russia accused of forcing Ukraine to abandon the negotiations

This bears no relation to reality, of course, but somehow still resonates with many of the Western decision-makers and their pundits. But Velina puts nicely what I think of that as well:

https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1780130327228227993?t=X44i6pSzCczBr8DWCBKaDA&s=19

If you wanna know *a bit* more, please read this article, published by an authoritative Polish media outlet. Yep, it's in Polish, but Google Translate or AI would do the job these days
gazetaprawna.pl/wiadomosci/kra…

I admit that Charap & Radchenko did a good job, this is possibly the best article on Ukraine-Russia talks I have ever read. The problem is that the point of reference is so lame. And that's why even a good text doesn't reflect half of what really happened these days of 2022

On a last note - the flawed theory that Ukraine-Russia deal was reportedly almost there has been and will be used in the public debate to share the narrative that Ukraine should accept the Russian demands (since it reportedly accepted them in 2022, which, again, was *not* true)

I don't think that Charap and Radchenko deliberately omitted Poland and the Polish sources. I guess they have simply been unaware of the role that Poland played in the whole story. Western experts often think that Central Europe has no agency, but sometimes we prove them wrong :)