What would a Ukraine peace deal look like?

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: What would a Ukraine peace deal look like?

Ben Hall
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Ben Hall, the FT’s Europe editor, standing in for Gideon Rachman.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to have ground to a halt after three weeks and hopes for a diplomatic solution to the war have risen, with peace talks continuing and both sides softening their demands. My guest this week is Rose Gottemoeller, an American diplomat who was deputy secretary-general of Nato from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as US under-secretary of state for arms control and international security, and is now a lecturer at Stanford. So what might a peace deal look like and what would both sides need to accept to bring it about?

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At the start of the conflict, Vladimir Putin’s aim of removing Ukraine’s leadership and placing the country under Russian tutelage was clear. In a lengthy address to the nation, he said Ukraine’s government was run by neo-Nazis who were repressing the country’s Russian-speaking minority.

Vladimir Putin (via a translator)
They call themselves patriots but they lost their national character or feature, and it’s leading to the total loss of sovereignty of the country. They diversify and forcefully assimilate people.

Ben Hall
But Ukraine’s defences have proved far more resilient than Putin anticipated, and the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has become something of a hero both at home and abroad. Moscow’s forces have still not captured any of Ukraine’s biggest cities, and they are still some way off from encircling the capital Kyiv. Instead, Russia has been bombarding cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol and targeting residential areas on the outskirts of Kyiv with horrific consequences for the civilian population.

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Another barrage before dawn, Ukrainian anti-aircraft batteries intercepting a Russian missile over the capital, one of two shot down this morning. As the assault closes in on Kyiv, two and a half million civilians are suddenly on the frontline. Vladimir Putin says Russians should be proud of what their soldiers are doing in Ukraine. But where’s the honour in bombing a children’s and maternity hospital in a city that’s surrounded?

Ben Hall
I began by asking Rose why three weeks into this war, a negotiated outcome seems more plausible than before.

Rose Gottemoeller
There are two reasons why I think that we have some active diplomacy going on. First is that it has been so quiet. We are not seeing that megaphone diplomacy that we saw in the run-up to this invasion when Russia was insisting that every move had to be public and even was leaking its documents that it had received from the United States in order to ensure that everyone knew what was going on on both sides of the table. It’s gone quiet now, and I think that’s a good sign for the diplomacy. The other is that there are several channels apparently open now. We saw the president of France and the German chancellor — President Macron, Chancellor Scholz — speaking at length with Putin yesterday. We’ve also seen Naftali Bennett, the Israeli leader, in several rounds of private discussions, either by telephone or in person, with Putin. And then furthermore, you have the interactions with the foreign minister, for example, and the Ukrainian foreign minister in Turkey this week. So I think that is good. And then you have these routine discussions going on. I won’t call them routine. They’re anything but routine, but they’re more at a working level that have been going on in Belarus. The fourth round just completed. So there is a lot of activity. I take that as a good sign. And that it’s quiet is also a very good sign.

Ben Hall
Do you think this at all reflects on the state of the war on the ground and in particular this assessment, perhaps, that the Russian offensive has largely ground to a halt and that it cannot make much more progress without a big leap in sort of manpower or firepower, and that it might make sense for Russia to talk if for nothing else to get a temporary pause in its offensive?

Rose Gottemoeller
I think that is much of what is driving this renewed attention to diplomacy at this moment, although the Kremlin is not admitting it, but they have now also begun to modify some of their demands. We have not heard Mr Putin say, for example, denazification for the past week, and again this is perhaps a small step and cold comfort for those being pounded inside Ukraine. But nevertheless, we are beginning to see some adjustment in the Russian demands and their demands for security guarantees, as they’ve called it. So let’s see where that goes. But I do think the core reason why we are seeing this modification in Russian behaviour is because of the fact that they are being defeated on the ground. They are so far not able to overcome the defence that the Ukrainians are putting up.

Ben Hall
Do you think it’s really possible that Vladimir Putin might have changed his war aims? As you said, with the rhetoric of denazification, it was about removing the democratically elected government of Ukraine and, presumably by putting in his own puppet regime and therefore exerting full control over Ukraine, ending its status as an independent state. Do you really think he would ever retreat from that aim?

Rose Gottemoeller
It’s a very interesting development, but in fact, Vladimir Putin has ceased to talk about regime change in Ukraine, and it is, I think, really what is behind dropping the notion of denazification as one of the conditions for Russian withdrawal. But it’s not clear to me how much that means so far because they have continued to pound Kyiv. There have been some enormous explosions in Kyiv once again. And so seizing the capital city and really making that the centrepiece of their campaign at the moment is, well, it seems to be still very much on the table.

Ben Hall
Another thing that has certainly changed in the last three weeks is Zelensky’s own authority, even if it’s being challenged obviously militarily by Russia. His political authority, his authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the Ukrainian people has completely changed. He is now a kind of heroic wartime leader. That presumably also gives him more leeway to negotiate and to cut a deal with Moscow if one were to eventually loom into view.

Rose Gottemoeller
Zelensky’s become a hero not only to the Ukrainian people but to the world as a whole, I think, at least those who have regard for the rule of law. He’s been an amazing leader of this invasion period, this very tragic period for Ukraine. And it’s quite something to watch him, in contrast to Putin who seems very much hiding behind the walls of the Kremlin and keeping everyone at arm’s length except his chosen few and Zelensky’s out there every day with the people. So yes, I think that has lent him a legitimacy and an authority to be able to lead his country out of this crisis and that will require negotiating with the Russians. So I do think that he has a stronger hand now, both in the backing that he will have from his own population but also in his ability to deal with the Russians.

Ben Hall
Rose, you mentioned how Moscow no longer talks so insistently about regime change, but it’s the Ukrainians, too, who have arguably softened their position, and Zelensky is being quite candid about it. He no longer sees Nato membership as immediately viable, and therefore he’s sort of embracing the concept of neutrality for Ukraine. I wonder, could you tell us what you see is neutrality actually meaning for Kyiv?

Rose Gottemoeller
Ideally, and I do really take seriously the comments of the Ukrainian president in recent days that he does not see Nato membership on the cards immediately for Ukraine, so he evidently is thinking himself through what neutrality would mean, along with his, I’m sure, with his own top ministers and advisers. But to my mind neutrality would look something like what Austria has today, which is a vibrant economy, difficult political environment there, as we all know, and its own share of problems. But in general terms, it is a vibrant economy and a functioning democracy, and it does have armed forces as well. By the way, they are very good partners of Nato. So I think that that kind of model might be in the head of the Ukrainian president, but I cannot tell for sure. Many countries, including Finland, have thrived on the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union and now Russia again, and become vibrant economies and democracies, maintaining armed forces while not being members of Nato.

Ben Hall
Could you see Moscow ever countenancing a neutral Ukraine that had its own viable armed forces?

Rose Gottemoeller
I think that must be part of the deal, in my view. This notion of demilitarisation, even in the Russian mind, as I’ve read it, does not seem to imply a total dissolution of the Ukrainian armed forces. But the Russians seem to be talking about ensuring that there are no large offensive missiles and certain kinds of advanced weapons systems deployed in Ukraine. And we will see as the negotiations go forward if that is what they have in mind. But certainly Finland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, they all have armed forces. They are neutral countries, thriving democracies and healthy economies.

Ben Hall
They all have quite muscular armed forces. I just wonder whether even that would be too much for Moscow to bear given how much resistance the Ukrainians have put up in recent weeks.

Rose Gottemoeller
Yes, it is a good question and to be honest with you, Ben, I cannot see at this moment what exactly the demands have been. But signals from Moscow have really focused that their priority is on preventing advanced offensive missiles from being deployed in Ukraine.

Ben Hall
Now, Zelensky and his advisers have insisted that neutrality would have to be underpinned by international security guarantees for Ukraine. This was tried before, of course, with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which was supposedly guaranteed by the US, the UK and Russia in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. That’s obviously failed with this war and indeed with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war in the Donbas. But, so why would international guarantees work any better now?

Rose Gottemoeller
Well, it seems like a faint hope at the moment, but we have to continue to hope for the strength of international law. And in this case, I am sure that a number of countries, not only the US and the UK, would line up in order to help, to convey the strength of the support for Ukraine as we have seen in the strength of the sanctions regime that has been rolled out against Russia in recent days. So it was not a deterrent in advance of the invasion, I grant you that, but having a coherent international community ready to again jump in with that kind of economic pressure, as well as continuing support for Ukraine, I think could form the foundation for guarantees going forward.

Ben Hall
So we’re not talking about a sort of explicit, say, US defence guarantee for Ukraine because, well, that would be sort of a bit like Nato membership, right? And that would surely be totally unacceptable to Moscow.

Rose Gottemoeller
Correct. And Zelensky himself has stepped away from the notion of joining Nato with its Article 5 guarantee that if it is attacked, that other allies will come to its aid. So that is something that the Ukrainians themselves seem to have acknowledged now. So what the guarantee looks like, how it takes shape, I do believe will really be focused around ensuring that Russia knows that it will suffer pain, and that pain will likely be in the economic realm if it proceeds down any path of a renewed invasion.

Ben Hall
Even if you could work out a sort of mutually acceptable version of neutrality, the other differences still look pretty unbridgeable, right? Independence for the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, these are the two pro-Russian rebel-held areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region; recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea. These would be pretty hard for Zelensky to accept, wouldn’t they?

Rose Gottemoeller
It’s going to be up to President Zelensky again and his government to decide, and with the backing of the Ukrainian people, what they can accept. I don’t know to tell you the truth, Ben. I will say that we have lived with frozen conflicts on the borderlands of Russia now, really since Stalin’s time, it was a Stalinist aim to create these kinds of particle republics where there are inherent conflicts built into them. Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia is exactly that. And it has existed since Stalin’s time. So now we see this also in Moldova, we see it in Georgia. Of course, none of this is acceptable in terms of creating stability on the borders of Russia, which is what is so ironic about it. They need stability there and they need the countries there to be at peace. But I can imagine that what we are looking at is the formation of a new frozen regime there in Ukraine for some period of time, and I would not like to see my own country, the United States, accept that as a necessary reality forever. We did not ever accept that the Baltics were not independent states during those 70 years of the USSR, and now they are again independent countries. So I think for the United States certainly, we have to bear that in mind that we do not need to accept a frozen situation in Ukraine.

Ben Hall
And do you think, could you imagine Putin accepting the idea of a Ukraine that’s still independent and let alone a democratic state? I mean, after all, it did seem that this wasn’t just about Ukraine’s Nato membership but its whole western orientation. And after all, Austria, which is the example you use perhaps a little optimistically, I mean, that is firmly embedded within the EU, if not in Nato.

Rose Gottemoeller
Yes, this whole dispute with Russia actually began in 2014, when Ukraine and really the people of Ukraine insisted that they signed the association agreement with the European Union. It was not over Nato at all, it was over the EU and the economic relationship with the EU. Ukraine is moving west. That’s all there is to it. And I think it has shown itself in this invasion to really have become an independent and sovereign state. And so I think at the top line, the very most important strategic objective has to be to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as strongly as we can. And that means the independence of Ukraine under a government in its capital, Kyiv.

Ben Hall
Now, if peace talks fail and the war intensifies, and I think we have to acknowledge that that’s probably a more likely scenario if a grim one, the pressure is going to grow for western military intervention in this war. And indeed, Zelensky makes daily pleas for Nato to get involved in terms of enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Is Biden, is Nato right to resist?

Rose Gottemoeller
I think it is, because of again strategic objective, along with restoring sovereignty and territorial integrity in Ukraine, is also to ensure that this does not turn into a wider war, a general war in Europe that could eventually draw in countries across the globe, depending on the terror and the horror of nuclear escalation. And we all want to avoid that in every way that we can. So I think that Nato must concentrate on preventing World War 3 from breaking out. That has got to be its strategic objective here. And for that reason, it will continue to support Ukraine with military assistance and humanitarian assistance in every way it can. But actually becoming involved in the fight? I don’t see it.

Ben Hall
And what about Russia’s possible use of chemical weapons in Ukraine? Should the west draw that as a red line?

Rose Gottemoeller
I think any use of weapons of mass destruction is a red line. That’s all there is to it. And so I think that, first of all, doing exactly what the Biden administration has been doing, as well as others, the UK government has also been very, very active in getting intelligence out there to ensure that the Russians know there will be no impunity here. We understand if there is a chemical, biological or, heaven forbid, a nuclear use in some way in this Ukraine invasion that the blame will be firmly on Russia. It will not be able to be pinned on anybody else as the Russians seem to be intent on trying to do. So that is first and foremost the most important thing. And second, it is to prepare people not to, well, it will be a panic-inspiring event, but not to panic, but to try to really be responding in a pragmatic way, as well as possible to, for example, a chemical attack, it’s possible to be ready to respond with antidotes and that type of resilience measure. But I do think the most important thing is to be strong in warning Russia of no impunity in these attacks and that the consequences for Russia will be dire again in terms of its really being shut off from its own access to the rest of the world community, becoming a pariah state.

Ben Hall
But just to be clear, you don’t think that use of chemical weapons would necessitate a military response by Nato.

Rose Gottemoeller
No.

Ben Hall
That’s very clear.

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That was Rose Gottemoeller ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again next week when Gideon will be back as host of the show.

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