Arakhamiia stated that he does not regret the conclusion of the «Istanbul agreements» with the Russian Federation in 2022: «We were not given guarantees»
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- Alisa Melik-Adamian
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12:30, 12 June, 2024
David Arakhamiia, the head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, said that he does not regret ending the negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022.
He said this in a comment to the NikVesti correspondent during the Ukraine Recovery Conference.
We will remind that two years ago, David Arakhamiia was part of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations with the Russian Federation. The last meeting of the delegations took place at the end of March.
As a result of those negotiations, «peace treaty proposals» were made public. Its main provisions are the neutral status of Ukraine and the «suspended status» of the occupied Crimea and part of Donbas.
According to David Arakhamiia, the Ukrainian delegation had many questions at the time, for which they did not receive any security guarantees.
«No, I'm not sorry. There was such a situation that it was not important, given that there are many issues for which they could not provide guarantees. We will continue to see how it will all work,» said David Arakhamia.
Negotiations in Istanbul in 2022
Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul started on March 10, 2022. Then the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamiia, met with the head of the delegation from the Russian Federation, former Minister of Culture and Vladimir Putin's assistant, Volodymyr Medynskyi. After a round of negotiations, the representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the partial withdrawal of the Russian military from Kyiv and Chernihiv. Also at that time, the Russian side announced Putin's readiness to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the event of a peace treaty. However, the contract was not signed.
A number of politicians and political scientists believed that Ukraine then lost a chance to end the war.
In November 2023, David Arakhamiia said that during the negotiations, the Russians promised to withdraw troops in exchange for Ukraine's refusal to join NATO. However, the Ukrainian side did not agree to this, as it was not sure that the Russian Federation would really withdraw from the territory of Ukraine.
The Russian Federation also demanded that the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine not exceed 85,000 servicemen, 342 tanks and 519 artillery installations. Ukrainian negotiators insisted on a 250,000-strong army, roughly at the pre-war level, with 800 tanks and 1,900 artillery units.
In May 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again spoke about negotiations with Ukraine and said that they had never given up on them. He stated that Russia is ready to negotiate on the basis of the «Istanbul agreements».