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Istanbul Deal Offered Ukraine Nothing, Demanded Massive Concessions

I’d like to remind you what exactly was actually included in the lost paradise of the 2022 Istanbul negotiations that Ukraine “should have accepted back then”: - reducing the Ukrainian army to symbolic levels (between 50,000 and 85,000 troops, with severely limited weaponry), - renouncing membership in any defensive alliances (first and foremost NATO) no allied troops on Ukrainian soil, no military assistance from Western countries, - recognizing itself as a “Nazi state” to satisfy Kremlin propaganda and carrying out “denazification” (in other words, persecuting anyone Moscow decides to label a “Nazi”), - granting Russia veto power over any military assistance to Ukraine from countries guaranteeing its security in the event of a new Russian invasion (yes, exactly like that), - Ukraine renouncing Crimea and Donbas, - and from Russia, nothing: no troop withdrawals prior to Ukraine’s full capitulation, no obligations, no real mechanism to prevent another invasion, nothing. All of this came at a time when, in March 2022, Russia’s blitzkrieg against Ukraine had already failed, and after more than a month of fighting, the Russian military was defeated near Kyiv and retreated without achieving a single one of its objectives. Let me remind you further: those so-called “Istanbul peace negotiations” in 2022 were, in reality, nothing more than diplomatic consultations that were not taken particularly seriously either in the media or at the highest levels of government. Because no one had any illusions that, despite the obvious failure of the invasion, the Kremlin continued to arrogantly demand deliberately unacceptable "peace terms" that were neither serious nor viable. Moreover, even after their defeat near Kyiv, Russia had no intention of admitting failure or ending the invasion. By late March and early April, the battered Russian forces withdrawn from northern Ukraine were being redeployed to Donbas for a new offensive and the second phase of the war. Remember how we lived day by day then, expecting the massive battle for Donbas that began in mid-April 2022? And I would also like to remind you that the Kremlin, along with its armies of bots and useful idiots, did not spend years lamenting this blessed lost paradise of “Istanbul,” where the evil and foolish Zelensky rejected Putin’s noble hand of peace, and the treacherous Boris Johnson forbade Ukraine from "making peace" with Russia. This “Istanbul” mantra only resurfaced in Russian propaganda after Donald Trump came to power, when it became clear that Ukraine could not be defeated militarily, and that a more promising path would be to try to force Kyiv into capitulation through “peace negotiations” under pressure from a profoundly incompetent and openly anti-Ukrainian U.S. president.