DISINFO: The West ignored Russia’s calls for peace negotiations
SUMMARY
From the outset of the conflict, the Kremlin has been advocating for negotiation with the West. However, the West, particularly the EU, perceived Vladimir Putin's calls for negotiation as signs of a weakened trader and consequently pursued a political strategy aimed at defeating Russia on the battlefield. Josép Borrell and Ursula von der Leyen were the most vocal about it, but NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wasn't far behind.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative implying that the so-called "collective West" should be negotiating peace in Ukraine, painting the latter as a puppet state without any agency, while the West is framed as a warmongering entity.
The EU unequivocally supported President Zelenskyy’s peace formula, a 10-point peace plan presented at an EU-Ukraine summit in February 2023. It is up to Ukraine to decide when it will hold talks with Russia.
Several international conferences to discuss support for Ukraine's peace plan have already taken place.
On 5 and 6 August 2023 Saudi Arabia hosted multinational peace talks attended by 40 countries (including China) in Jeddah focusing on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's proposed peace plan. More recently, on 1 December 2023, a tenth working meeting with representatives of 83 states and three international organizations on the implementation of the Ukraine's Peace Formula was held in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukraine's peace formula was also discussed in Davos at the WEF in January 2024. In February 2024, Switzerland announced it would organise a high-level Ukraine peace conference by the summer, the date of which has not yet been announced.
Putin and the Kremlin have a track record of pretending negotiations which are, in fact, just blunt demands for Ukrainian unconditional surrender. We have analysed this disinfo tactic in several articles, especially: "Prepare for winter" (30 Nov. 2023), "Russian so-called ‘peace proposals’ are empty PR stunts" (18 Jan. 2023) , "What He Said and What it Really Means – Vol. 2: “Negotiations” (1. March 2022) and "The Kremlin security demands" (21 Dec. 2021).
Read similar disinformation cases claiming the West has no intention of ending the conflict in Ukraine, that Boris Johnson prohibited Kyiv from signing an agreement with Russia in 2022, that West did not want peace, it prodded Ukraine into war, that Zelenskyy and the EU want a permanent war in Ukraine, that Zelenskyy’s peace plan is a war formula, that Russia never rejected a peaceful solution in Ukraine, Kyiv refuses to negotiate, that EU does not want peace, only total defeat of Russia, that The West is not interested in peace, or that Boris Johnson derailed 2022 Istanbul peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.