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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   708 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 15, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Bloomberg has posted the list of Russian demands from the Istanbul talks:

  1. Permanent neutral status for Ukraine (like Austria)
  2. No reparations
  3. No calls for the return of Crimea and the four mainland regions
  4. No ceasefire until Ukraine withdraws from the four mainland regions
  5. International recognition of the new border

An anonymous X user clashreport has posted a similar list, but with "adoption of EU standards for minority rights and ending nationalist propaganda" inserted as item 3.

The ordering of the items shows what Russia is willing to negotiate on:

  • military neutrality of Ukraine is important
  • where the new border will be isn't, as long as Russia doesn't have to cede any land and Ukraine drops all claims beyond symbolic ones
  • the other part of the original war goal, "denazification", is an interesting case.

I think Bloomberg's source consciously omitted it from the list to make Russia look like a straightforward warmonger in pursuit of moar clay. It's also the most dangerous to Ukraine in the long run, a poison pill.

Armed neutrality is easy: Ukraine can still buy whatever military hardware and training it needs from anyone, it just needs to do it in Przemyśl.

But "no persecution of the Russian language" is hard, because either Ukraine will have to crack down on its own most politically active citizens in a complete reversal of its current policy, or Russia will have a pretext for a resumption of hostilities at any moment.

Permanent neutral status for Ukraine (like Austria)

Im still surprised by this. Our neutrality has always seemed to me like it gained the Soviets little. Anything to say about this from your end?

It's practically impossible to demand that Ukraine becomes officially Russian-aligned. This would require a complete takeover, and most countries would simply recognize the government in exile as the legitimate one.

Permanent neutrality leaves the door open for a future political realignment: Ukrainians are well known for throwing out the rulers they don't like.

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