> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theoceaniacables.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The 2023 Peace Draft Putin Agreed To — and Kyiv Refused - URL: https://www.theoceaniacables.com/the-2023-peace-draft-putin-agreed-to-and-kyiv-refused/ - Published: 2026-10-26T07:07:43.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-26T07:07:43.000Z - Description: Financial Times reports the draft set the border near the pre-war line, recognised Russian control of Crimea & a land bridge; Zelenskyy rejected - Author: The Oceania Cables - Tags: Russia, Ukraine, Conflict, Diplomacy ## **Summary:** New reporting from a Financial Times investigation, published on 24 October 2026, has revealed that President Vladimir Putin agreed in early 2023 to a private draft peace settlement that would have set the Ukraine border near its pre-war position. The draft would have returned to Ukraine much of the territory Russia had seized since the full-scale invasion, required Kyiv to recognise Russian control of Crimea, and given Russia free passage over a land bridge to the peninsula. Putin reviewed the document line by line and agreed with the front line it proposed, by the account of Matthias Warnig, the former Stasi officer who carried it to the Kremlin on 1 February 2023\. "If we can agree on the border and on NATO, then we can discuss everything else," he said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his then chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, rejected the draft because it required territorial concessions. Ukrainian forces had just retaken large areas of the Kherson and Kharkiv regions and were preparing a further counter-offensive. Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, confirmed the draft's existence on 25 October, adding that it had also provided for the return of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the use of frozen Russian assets for reconstruction, and de-facto rather than de-jure recognition of Crimea. The channel closed by mid-February 2023, after Putin disclosed it to senior aides. United States, Ukrainian and Russian officials are due to meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November for a new round of technical-level talks, the first since two rounds in the emirate in January and February 2026 ended without agreement. ## **Detailed Report** ### **1\. A Banker, a Lawyer, a Film Producer and a Former Stasi Officer Produce a Peace Draft** The draft was the work of an informal group calling itself the Platform, which held no official standing with any government. The Financial Times investigation, by Max Seddon, names four members: Richard Conn, an American lawyer; Bob Foresman, a banker; Alexander Rodnyansky, a Ukrainian film producer; and Matthias Warnig, a former East German Stasi officer and long-time acquaintance of Putin. Warnig carried the paper to the Russian president and handed it over on 1 February 2023. The Financial Times reported the proposal's terms as follows: "Russia would withdraw from much of the regions Putin had just annexed, setting the border at the territory it controlled in Crimea and parts of the Donbas before the war. Ukraine would recognise Russian control of Crimea and give Russia free passage over a 'land bridge' to the peninsula. To ensure the ceasefire held, Ukraine would get protection from NATO states, and Russia would begin discussing a separate agreement on security guarantees with the US." The land bridge is territory additional to the line Russia held before 24 February 2022, not part of it. Goncharenko confirmed the draft's existence in posts on X on 25 October. He said the Russian businessman Roman Abramovich played a central role. Per his account, the draft also provided for the return of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine, the use of frozen Russian assets to rebuild all of Ukraine including the occupied areas, and de-facto rather than de-jure recognition of Russian control of Crimea, with a Ukrainian law barring any attempt to retake it by force. Russia, he said, was willing to give up Melitopol but not Tokmak, two cities in the Zaporizhzhia region. Zelenskyy rejected the proposal. ### **2\. The Kremlin Accepted the Border and Blocked the Alliance** Putin agreed with the front line the draft proposed, per the account of the man who carried it. The Financial Times reports that he went through the document line by line, circling passages and scribbling comments. He could not allow Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), per Warnig's account, but was open to Ukrainian membership of the European Union and to a security arrangement of the kind discussed at the Istanbul talks in 2022\. The Financial Times quotes Warnig attributing to Putin the statement: > "If we can agree on the border and on NATO, then we can discuss everything else." ### **3\. Kyiv Refused the Terms While Its Forces Were Advancing** Zelenskyy and Yermak rejected the draft because it required territorial concessions, per the Financial Times. The rejection came from strength: Ukrainian forces had retaken Kherson and large parts of Kharkiv region in the autumn of 2022 and were preparing a further counter-offensive. The channel ended by mid-February 2023, after Putin disclosed it to senior aides. The Financial Times, citing Warnig, reports that Putin asked his foreign-policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, to confirm Washington's mandate for the channel with Jake Sullivan, then the national security adviser to President Joe Biden, and that Sullivan indicated it was not authorised. Tom Wright, a former National Security Council official in the Biden administration, rejected that part of the account on X on 24 October, saying the exchange never took place. Neither Zelenskyy, Putin nor the White House has responded publicly to the report. ### **4\. An Earlier Framework Collapsed at Istanbul in April 2022** The 2023 draft was not the first attempt to end the war by negotiation. Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in Istanbul in March and April 2022 and worked on a framework built around Ukrainian neutrality, limits on the size of Ukraine's armed forces and a 10-to-15-year clause on Crimea. Security guarantees would come from a group of countries. The draft required Russian consent before any guarantor could use force on Ukraine's behalf. The talks collapsed in April 2022. Two accounts explain the collapse. The first is the veto clause itself, which Ukrainian negotiators could not treat as a guarantee worth having. The second is what happened at Bucha, a town near Kyiv that Russian forces occupied in early March 2022 and withdrew from by the end of the month. When Ukrainian troops returned, they found civilian bodies, some with bound hands and gunshot wounds. Satellite images from the American firm Maxar show bodies on Yablunska Street between 11 and 31 March, while Russia still held the town. Moscow has denied responsibility and said the scenes were staged. A third account comes from David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian negotiator, who said in a 2023 interview with the Ukrainian channel 1+1 that Boris Johnson, then British prime minister, visited Kyiv in April 2022 and advised Ukraine to keep fighting. Johnson rejected the account in an interview with The Times on 10 January 2024, calling it "nothing but total nonsense and Russian propaganda." ### **5\. Peace Initiatives Since the Draft, 2023–2026** Several further efforts followed over the next three years — papers, missions, summits and, from 2025, direct talks. None produced an agreed settlement. China published a 12-point position on 24 February 2023 calling for an immediate ceasefire, a resumption of peace talks and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, alongside humanitarian provisions, the safety of nuclear power plants and the facilitation of grain exports. It specified no territorial settlement and did not call for Russian withdrawal. Three months later, an African mission led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa took a ten-point proposal to Kyiv on 16 June 2023 and to St Petersburg the following day, built around negotiation, de-escalation, security guarantees for both sides and post-war reconstruction. Zelenskyy said negotiations were possible only after the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from occupied territory. Putin challenged the premise that internationally recognised borders must be the starting point. Ukraine's own ten-point Peace Formula requires full restoration of its 1991 borders. About 40 countries discussed the formula at a meeting in Jeddah in August 2023\. No joint statement followed. A larger summit at Bürgenstock, Switzerland, in June 2024 drew more than 90 countries. Russia was not invited, and India and Saudi Arabia were among those that did not sign the final communiqué. Direct talks resumed in 2025 after a gap of more than three years. Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul on 16 May 2025 and agreed to a large prisoner exchange. At a second round on 2 June, Ukraine proposed a 30-day ceasefire. Russia rejected the proposal and pressed instead for a two-to-three-day truce in limited areas to collect its dead. Mediation then moved to the leaders' level. President Donald Trump met Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on 15 August 2025\. The meeting lasted under three hours and ended without agreement. "There's no deal until there's a deal," Trump said afterwards. Following the Anchorage summit, the Trump administration presented a 28-point framework to Ukrainian officials on or about 20 November 2025\. Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, drew it up with input from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, after consultation with the Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev. The framework proposed an immediate ceasefire along the line of contact; recognised Russian de facto control of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk; froze the front in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia; moved Ukrainian forces out of the rest of Donetsk; barred Ukraine permanently from NATO; and provided for frozen Russian assets to fund reconstruction. The text did not survive intact. After US-Ukrainian talks in Geneva later that month, nine points were removed. Reporting at the time put the remaining draft first at 26 points and then at 19\. Territorial concessions and the NATO bar were deferred to a possible meeting of leaders. No final text has since been agreed. The terms on offer have moved with the front. The 2023 draft had Russia withdrawing from much of the land it claimed. Putin's public condition in June 2024 was that Ukraine withdraw from all four regions, of which Russia now holds about 82%. The November 2025 US framework would have frozen Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and had Ukraine leave the rest of Donetsk. None was accepted by both sides. ### **6\. Trilateral Talks Due in Abu Dhabi After Two Failed Rounds** United States, Ukrainian and Russian officials are due to meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November. Zelenskyy told the Hudson Institute, a Washington policy research group, by video link on 23 October that Ukraine was ready to discuss a full ceasefire, or a narrower arrangement covering energy or maritime operations. Any agreement, he said, would need strong security guarantees and ten years of funding for the Ukrainian army. On the Russian side, Ushakov said Putin was prepared for talks around 10 November, with a focus on post-conflict security arrangements. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it was "premature" to think a deal was close. The meeting would follow two previous rounds of trilateral technical talks in Abu Dhabi, held on 23–24 January and 4–5 February 2026, which addressed negotiating parameters and the status of the Zaporizhzhia plant. Neither produced an agreement. No agenda or list of participants has been published for the November meeting. ### **Conclusion** A draft settlement that would have set the Ukraine border near its pre-war line reached Putin's desk in February 2023 and, by his courier's account, won his agreement on the front line. Zelenskyy and Yermak rejected it while Ukrainian forces were advancing, and the channel closed within weeks. Russia held roughly 16.5 to 18% of Ukraine at the time; it holds about 19% today, and the war has since cost the two sides more than two million military casualties, by the estimate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. As of publication, US, Ukrainian and Russian officials are due to meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November.