14 September 2022, Wednesday, 18:22 456

Putin Rejected Peace Agreement With Ukraine At Beginning Of War - Reuters

Даша Зубкова

Before the invasion of the Russian Federation, the Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of Russia, Dmitry Kozak, informed Vladimir Putin that he had reached a temporary agreement with Ukraine to abandon the course for joining NATO. But this did not stop Putin from waging war against Ukraine. This was reported by Reuters on Wednesday, September 14, with reference to its own sources.

Putin's top representative on Ukraine’s issues told the Russian leader he had reached an interim agreement with Kyiv that would satisfy Russia's demand not to expand NATO, but Putin rejected it and insisted on a military campaign, the publication said, citing three people close to the Russian leadership.

According to those sources, Kozak told Putin that he believed the agreement he had reached had spared Russia the need for a large-scale occupation of Ukraine. Reuters reports for the first time on Kozak's recommendation to Putin to accept the agreement. Reuters reminds that before the war, the president of the Russian Federation repeatedly stated that NATO and its military infrastructure were approaching Russia's borders, and in the case of Ukraine, this posed an "existential threat" to Russia, which forced him to react.

"But despite his earlier support for negotiations, Putin made it clear when he was presented with the Kozak’s agreement that the concessions negotiated by his aide did not go far enough, and that he had broadened his goals by including the annexation of Ukrainian territories, the sources said. The bottom line: the agreement was terminated," the report said.

Two of the three sources said that the push to dismiss the agreement came immediately after the February 24 Russian invasion. A few days earlier, Kozak believed that he had obtained Ukraine's consent to the basic conditions that Russia sought, and recommended Putin to sign the agreement.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" against Ukraine.

On September 9, the General Staff announced for the first time the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kharkiv region.

Also, on September 9, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns called Russia's invasion of Ukraine a failure.

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