Putin lays out his demands in call to Turkey

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to position himself as a go between, with President Vladimir Putin putting a call in to him on Thursday 18^th as he lays out his demands for a peace deal with Ukraine.

The BBC’s John Simpson spoke with Mr Erdogan’s leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin soon after the call, Mr Kalin being part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.

According to Mr Kalin, the Russian demands fall into two categories with the first category in his view not difficult for Ukraine to meet.

Chief among the demands is that Ukraine should be a neutral country and should not apply to join NATO, something Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded.

This it seems would also include Ukraine to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn’t a threat to Russia, and there would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine.

Putin also again called for the de-Nazification of the country, something deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, a Jew who lost relatives in the Holocaust, Mr Kalin says this is something that should be easy for Ukraine to accept, for the country to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.

The second category is where difficulties lie.

Mr Putin said that it would require face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky, something Mr Zelensky has already agreed to. Mr Kalin, was however much less specific about what these issues were simply saying that they involved the status of Donbas and Crimea.

The assumption is that Russia will demand Ukraine give up territory in eastern Ukraine, something that will be deeply contentious as will the likely demand that Ukraine formally acknowledge Crimea’s independence.

Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.

Interestingly the demands are not as bad as many people feared and certainly don’t justify the invasion, particularly as many of these could quite easily have been negotiated beforehand.

Perhaps most importantly for Putin with his control of state media, he would be able to present this as a victory. For Ukraine however it is different, the country have felt the need to protect itself against Russia, a concern that has come true. Will they be able to de-arm and become neutral having been invaded by Russia once before?

Any deal will need to be carefully worded and agreed, as Putin and his followers could quite easily use a loophole to once again exert its authority especially if the country has de-armed.

According to Mr Karin, Putin appeared to be focused and well during the discussions discounting the rumours that his ill or losing his mind. Whatever the situation, the cost to the country will have cost him support with the question remaining just how long he will able to cling on to power.

The demands that Putin lays out in his call are for the most part relatively easy to and should’ve been resolved through diplomacy. The more difficult question of de-arming and NATO membership is however more difficult to agree on given the violent insurgency, with the West having much to answer for by not standing down on the issue when it had the chance to defuse the situation.

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