Kremlin opposes disclosure of details of Ukrainian peace deal

The Kremlin does not want to publish the draft of the Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement of 2022, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Conditions on the ground" were different in March 2022, when the agreement was drafted, Kommersant quotes him as saying.

"The only thing I can say is that in March 2022 there were some conditions on the ground, today there are different conditions and a different, in fact, the legal status of the territories that have become regions of the Russian Federation. It is written in the Constitution of our country," said Dmitry Peskov when asked whether Russia was ready to withdraw troops from the territory of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the spring of this year. "In general, yes, in fact, there was an agreed text, but we don't want to publish it," the presidential spokesman added.

Earlier, the Wall Street Journal published a draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine dated April 15, 2022. According to the document, only Crimea would remain under unconditional Russian control, while the future of the LPR and DNR would be decided in personal negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

According to the agreement, Ukraine was to become a "permanently neutral state not participating in military blocs". Its army would be reduced to a certain size and no foreign weapons would be allowed on its territory. Russia insisted that the Russian language be used on an equal footing with Ukrainian in the government and courts, but the Ukrainian authorities did not agree to this clause of the treaty.

According to the newspaper, the implementation of the document should be guaranteed by the US, the UK, China, France and Russia. As long as the treaty remained in force, these powers would have been obliged to "terminate international treaties and agreements incompatible with Ukraine's permanent neutrality", including promises of bilateral military assistance.