At the end of 2021, when Russia tabled its draft documents on “legal and security guarantees from the United States and NATO”, demanding a halt to NATO enlargement, a rollback of Allied deployments, and a fundamental restructuring of European security, Western analysts dismissed them as unserious. They were labelled maximalist, delusional, or simply a pretext for war as Putin was already massing his armies around Ukraine. Weeks later, Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border and the drafts were filed away as historical curiosities, to be remembered perhaps as only the last written evidence of a diplomatic route Moscow never really intended to take.
Four years of war might prompt a rethink. Not because the Russian texts have become more reasonable, but because Europe has become more fragile. The US, preoccupied with Asia, has already drawn down elements of its posture in Romania. European budgets are stretched and domestic patience thin. And while the open-door formula remains in every NATO communiqué, senior US and Alliance officials now state openly that Ukraine’s accession is impossible while the war continues and implausible for years beyond it.
The take-away from the Alaska talks – however underwhelming their practical result – suggests that Washington and Moscow recognise that some form of structured de-escalation may eventually be necessary. And now there are new US-Russia negotiations on a 28-point peace plan that is said to cover peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine. Whatever is being discussed right now, it will very likely have to engage with the 2021 proposals because from a Russian point of view they remain the Kremlin’s starting position, especially on the wider points of European security.
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