US-Russia-Ukraine Trilateral Talks Scheduled, FT Reports on Failed 2023 Peace Effort

Since President Trump's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with both Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Russian President Putin last week, new reporting has emerged on both past and potential future peace plans for Ukraine.

For Context: Shortly after the Witkoff-Putin meeting ended, Zelenskyy spoke with Fox News (Right bias) host Brian Kilmeade and said he would accept freezing the conflict along the current lines of control as the first step towards diplomacy and developing a peace plan.

Latest Terms: In an opinion from The Economist (Left), the outlet claimed: "Ukrainian officials lack full details of the latest proposals, but the outline is familiar." The Economist said there would be a demilitarized zone in Donbas, US-Russia business deals, the lifting of sanctions, an investment package for Ukraine, and EU membership in exchange for abandoning its NATO ambitions. It added that the "newest sweetener" is "an offer to restart Russian gas sales to Europe," which are planned to be completely finished by the end of the year. The reported details were mentioned in commentary on X and Ukrainian media, though it remains unclear how much of the information was recently confirmed by The Economist.

Looking Forward: Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov spoke on Russian state television on Sunday, offering further updates on the status of negotiations. Hungarian Conservative (Lean Right) highlighted that he confirmed the US, Ukraine, and Russia will hold trilateral negotiations on November 4. Trilateral negotiations have long been something Ukraine has pushed for, but Putin has rejected. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy also confirmed the trilateral talks. The Washington Times (Lean Right) highlighted that Ushakov believes the European Union should play a bigger role in them than it has so far.

Failed 2023 Effort: Over the weekend, The Financial Times (Center) published a nearly 5,500-word report that chronicled the 2023 back-channel peace efforts of a few influential private citizens. The report claimed a deal was floated to Putin at the beginning of 2023 that he partially agreed to. Russia would withdraw its forces to pre-2022 lines of control, Ukraine would recognize Russian control of Crimea and grant Russia a corridor to access it from eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get NATO defense guarantees, and Russia would open negotiations with the US on separate security guarantees. Putin reportedly told former East German spy Matthias Warnig, "If we can agree on the border and on NATO, then we can discuss everything else."

Ukrainian film producer Alexander Rodnyansky reportedly "could barely get" Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and his top adviser Andriy Yermak to look at the proposal, as they were adamant about not giving up territory. Reportedly, according to Putin, the Biden administration did not consider the backchannel legitimate and believed its own diplomatic channels with the Kremlin were sufficient. FT said "former US officials" offered a different account and said Ushakov never mentioned the backchannel in official communications. FT said that Putin's demands have since "ballooned" and that the backchannel participants "believe the US and Ukraine missed a potential opportunity to secure peace on far more favourable terms than Putin is now willing to entertain."

FT Reporting Confirmed: A few days after FT's report, Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko confirmed the peace proposal's authenticity and contents and added more context. Goncharenko said Russia would have forfeited "300 billion in frozen assets" for the reconstruction of Ukraine, Ukraine would have adopted a law that made reconquering Crimea via invasion illegal, and that Zelenskyy rejected the deal.

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