At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia offered a peace plan to Ukraine: it wanted almost complete disarmament of the Ukrainian army

At the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow demanded that Kyiv almost completely disarm the country, give up Crimea and Donbas, and lift sanctions.

Here's What We Know

Radio Liberty described documents containing the first peace proposals submitted by Russia after the attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Reportedly, Russia presented this "peace plan" to the Ukrainian side during the third round of talks in Belarus on 7 March 2022.

The invaders demanded, among other things, that Ukraine give up Crimea and recognise the independence of the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They also talked about almost complete disarmament of Ukraine, including a reduction in the number of army officers to 50,000. For example, according to this plan, the country was entitled to have up to 1,500 officers (five times less than by 2022).

Ukraine was also supposed to keep only 4 ships, 55 helicopters and 300 tanks. Overall, the neighbouring pro-Moscow Belarus had more equipment in 2022.

Interestingly, the Kremlin asked for the lifting of sanctions - Ukrainian and international - and the withdrawal of all international processes initiated against Russia after 2014. In addition, Ukraine had to recognise Russian as the state language and lift the ban on the use of Soviet and communist symbols.

Russia, for its part, only offered Ukraine a ceasefire. There was no talk of withdrawing Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.

At the talks in Istanbul in April 2022, Moscow's demands were "softer", and Ukraine managed to include some important issues in the documents, such as security guarantees.

However, the parties did not reach an agreement, and since then there have been no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Source: "Radio Liberty