The well-informed Russian strategic analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, wrote on RT that “everyone is expecting news on a Ukrainian settlement this week. The diplomatic activity is real and intense, and the visible signs suggest something significant is underway.”
Lukyanov said the details are not known, but it appears that “Russia is being offered a choice between ‘a bird in the hand and two in the bush’"—meaning a relatively quick settlement, granting it some kind of recognition of Crimea and other territories now under Russian control, versus a drawn-out negotiation over more fundamental issues that would guarantee Russia’s security in the future as well.
“Yet territory was not the true cause of this conflict,” Lukyanov argued. “The deeper issue was decades of unresolved security contradictions. ‘Demilitarization’—so prominently featured in Russia’s original demands—encompasses both Ukraine’s neutral status and the broader limitation of its military capabilities, whether through curtailing domestic production, cutting off external supplies, or reducing existing forces.
