The talks in Abu Dhabi, Donald Trump’s controversial peace initiatives, and Russian threats against European countries – the Kremlin continues to advance its own interests under the guise of discussions about security and a willingness to engage in dialogue. At the same time, the ideas put forward by American negotiators regarding the future of Ukrainian territories increasingly resemble attempts to bend reality to Vladimir Putin’s wishes. Meanwhile, as politicians discuss possible agreements, Russia continues its hybrid attacks and attempts to expand its influence.
Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of the Occupation, explained in an exclusive interview with 24 Channel why the meeting in Abu Dhabi does not bring the war any closer to an end, what is really behind the Kremlin’s demands regarding European security, how absurd the ideas of “redrawing” the Donbas are, and how Ukrainian strikes are affecting the fuel situation in Russia.
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What’s Behind the Abu Dhabi Talks and What Putin Is After
On the first day in Abu Dhabi, an agreement was reached on a large-scale prisoner exchange. Meanwhile, Sergey Lavrov says there will be no ceasefire, claiming that “the Kyiv regime did not want to comply with the joint security agreements that have been signed since 2014.” Are these security guarantees for Europe – which the Kremlin and the White House have latched onto – just a way to buy time, pull the wool over our eyes, and blackmail us? Or are their real goals unchanged?
Absolutely. If we put it all together, let’s start with Lavrov. First of all, why 2014? I’d like to remind you how certain parties signed the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed our sovereignty, non-aggression, and a pledge to provide assistance if anyone invaded. Not only did they fail to provide that assistance themselves.
Why 2014? Because we remember very well the first ceasefire, the first Minsk Agreements, and then the second Minsk Agreements.
For example, between the first and second Minsk Agreements, there was a seemingly minor incident – the shelling of the Sхідний neighborhood in Mariupol – which resulted in the deaths of 32 civilians. And it was the Russians who shelled the Ukrainian side. And now, as I understand it, we’re once again being accused of having fired on them. This is typical Russian logic.
Interview with Petro Andriushchenko: watch the video
Given that they’ve latched onto these security guarantees from Europe and clearly have no intention of letting go, we need to take a closer look here, because behind the slogans they’re spouting lies an entirely different plan. We can examine it very closely, and it becomes clear why they’ve latched onto this in particular.
Let’s set that aside for a moment and look at what Putin has actually been striving for since the very beginning of the war, since 2014, and during the second major phase starting in 2022. Then everything will become clear.
He’s not just seeking the destruction of Ukraine, nor merely occupation; he’s seeking to regain control. Essentially, he’s the “unifier of Russian lands” and aims to regain control over the entire former Soviet space. That’s one thing.
And second – this is what he constantly talks about: a multipolar world. That is, resolving European issues within Europe itself – what the borders will be, what sovereignty will entail. We’re seeing now who the government officials will be here and there. All of this fits into the framework of Russia’s security guarantees from Europe’s perspective. Taking into account everything our friends – such as Kushner and Keith Kellogg – say in between their trips back and forth. It all adds up to a process.
In other words, what Kushner wrote, for example, before they flew to Abu Dhabi, completely contradicts what Putin is trying to achieve.
And so there’s nothing to expect there. Putin is trying to resolve the issue of Europe. Putin is trying not only to take the Donbas but to gain full control over Ukraine. This could happen through either political or military occupation. It depends on what he’s capable of.
In fact, he also aims to sit down at the table with the world’s major powers, as he sees them. That is, this trilateral meeting: China, Russia, and the United States. In this case, it fits perfectly into Putin’s paradigm, according to which the United States decides the fate of the American continent, China decides the fate of the Asian continent, and Putin decides the fate of the European continent.
As for places like Africa and the rest of the world, the three of them will somehow work out among themselves the zones of influence, the areas where they’ll reap benefits, and so on. In other words, this is precisely why they’ve latched onto European security guarantees, realizing that here they might unexpectedly get what they want even without a war in Europe – and without having to do anything at all – thanks to the direct support of the United States. That’s why so much is revolving around this issue.
At the same time, however, it’s worth paying attention to things like Kaliningrad. Generally speaking, considering the possibility of a war breaking out in Europe – which, in theory, could happen, even though Europe is already under a barrage of attacks – Kaliningrad is the key issue.
We’ve seen in recent months that Russian narratives surrounding Kaliningrad are word for word identical to what the Russians said first before the occupation of Crimea, then before the occupation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and then before the full-scale invasion. In other words, it’s the same playbook of imaginary threats, false-flag operations, and so on.
That’s why Kaliningrad really is a major indicator here. And if they’re going to the negotiating table to, so to speak, agree on some potential security measures or peace agreements, while at the same time starting to hype up the “Kaliningrad story,” and the fact that Lavrov is saying today at the CSTO that they will never agree to what is currently being theoretically negotiated in Abu Dhabi – this indicates to us that there is no serious process underway. A hybrid attack is continuing on all fronts.
The only thing that’s actually working in our favor here is that Putin is suddenly beginning to realize that things haven’t gone as well for Trump as he’d hoped. And while he isn’t exactly losing influence, he is certainly losing the support from the United States that he could have counted on. For Ukraine, however, the opposite is true. Instead, thanks to our friendship with the Democrats, we may now have certain leverage to put pressure on Trump. Again, this is so that we can lobby for our own interests.
That’s why this “meeting in Abu Dhabi ” isn’t about European security measures, isn’t about security measures at all, and certainly isn’t about ending the war. Once again, we’re starting from scratch to build these relations with the Russians, even though neither we, in reality, nor the Russians are actually ready for a peace agreement just yet. Because there’s no common ground we could reach to find common ground.
What’s wrong with the promised security guarantees for Ukraine
But even the U.S. is unyielding. Their vision isn’t as realistic as ours. The U.S. is asking Putin, submitting a request to him for security guarantees for Ukraine under the NATO charter. What is that even supposed to mean?
It’s nonsense. To put it simply, it’s some kind of imaginary parallel world of the American continent, friends, relatives, and President Trump’s administration as a whole – a world where he’s already won eight wars that no one can find. So they’re trying to win the ninth one in this sort of way.
On the other hand, there is objective reality. Objective reality shows that Europe has serious doubts about NATO’s effectiveness as an institution. First and foremost, this applies to our Baltic neighbors – our friends in the Baltics – because they understand that they’re actually next in line. And they understand – based on the reaction from within NATO, and since these are NATO countries, they see this from the inside – that NATO is completely unprepared and far from certain that anyone will come to their defense.
Therefore, if the United States gives us certain guarantees that fully correspond to the letter of the NATO Charter – specifically Articles 4 and 5 – then we should objectively ask ourselves: to what extent are these guarantees effective? Where are the U.S. bases from which they are supposed to respond? Where will the missiles be deployed, and where will the aircraft be stationed?
It’s worth noting here that the United States constantly says it will be reducing its European contingent and, in fact, withdrawing it from European territory, just as NATO’s role will be reviewed. Therefore, this is simply utter nonsense, which shows that the negotiators – the people drafting these guarantees – have no real understanding of what might actually work and what might not.
On the other hand, where does all this even come from? Let’s recall all those peace agreements – the 18 points that Kirill Dmitriev brought to Kit Kellogg and sold to him in good faith.
Since then, absolutely nothing has changed. We’ve been going in circles with these 18 points; there are 5, 7, or 8 left – it doesn’t matter how many – the key ones remain the same. These are the size of our arsenal, the size of our Armed Forces and Defense Forces, their funding, the deployment of troops, non-membership in NATO, the relinquishment of territories in one form or another, and whatever guarantees they’ll offer us. In other words, nothing has changed.
They’re constantly trying to rephrase all these demands – and the United States is helping them do so – and sell this to us again as if these were some kind of real guarantees.
In reality, there are no guarantees here. The only guarantees – to avoid getting carried away – can come from our strong military, which is indeed true, our industry, and so on.
But we must understand that our guarantees lie in Europe’s active involvement – a much greater and more direct involvement, including the deployment of military forces capable of responding to these challenges. But this formula is absolutely unacceptable to Russia. And we see Putin’s reaction – not even toward NATO, but to any military contingent from foreign states – European ones first and foremost, and secondarily those he understands will always remain our partners, such as the United Kingdom.
Realizing that they certainly have no intention of making concessions to the Russian regime, he immediately goes back to square one, bringing up “denazification,” demilitarization, and all that nonsense.
In other words, we’re going in circles, and inside this circle are the American negotiators, who have absolutely no idea what’s going on. On the one hand, they’re offering us favorable terms, yet we refuse to accept them. The only problem is that there are no terms, because from the very beginning, these terms have been designed in such a way that the Russian side will definitely not comply with them.
So another round begins, one after another, which will lead nowhere.
At best, all our negotiations will once again come down to a prisoner-of-war exchange, which will take place. And here, if we look closely, we’ll find ourselves back in the same situation where we’ve already lost track of the agreements and all the exchanges.
Because on May 10, they promised us 1,000 for 1,000 – I’ll remind you, which is why we didn’t strike the parade on Red Square – but they returned only 554 people to us. 554 people as part of that very “1,000 for 1,000” exchange. So what new large-scale exchange have we agreed to if we haven’t even carried out that one yet?
In any case, the return of our people is wonderful. And we shouldn’t expect anything more than that. Plus, a small positive note is that our European partners have finally shown up somewhere in the picture.
Let’s hope that in the next round, they’ll simply sit down at the negotiating table as a fourth party on our side. Again, this won’t lead to anything – no concessions whatsoever. But the return of prisoners of war – that’s okay. And the Russians still have one more trump card up their sleeve, which they’ll surely try to play. These are various humanitarian missions like the one in Oleshky.
What absurd idea about “redrawing” the Donbas did Trump express?
Zelenskyy comments that Putin isn’t limiting himself to the Donbas. And *The Economist* writes that Trump has some crazy idea to figuratively redraw the territory of Donbas so that Putin doesn’t take what he hasn’t occupied, but presents it as a victory. What do you think about that?
I think we need to call someone in – the people in white coats and all that. But “ That's exactly the kind of idea Trump would come up with ” is actually the case, if you really think about it.
I believe this idea hasn’t been thought through. As I understand it, the idea is to annex Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and Sviatohirsk – for example – to the Kharkiv Oblast, call it the Kharkiv Oblast, and it would turn out that Putin would seize the entire so-called Donbas. At the very least, he would control the entire Donetsk Oblast, and that’s where it should stop. Because, in my view, very few people actually understand what the Donbas really is.
But I believe we can go much further here and propose a counterproposal. For example, Kyiv could be renamed Lviv. What do the Russians say? That as a result of Russia’s victory and Ukraine’s capitulation – so that Putin would feel it clearly – Ukraine must “shrink” to Western Ukraine, excuse the original language, and to Lviv.
Therefore, “it’s worth renaming Ukraine, as part of these agreements, to Western Ukraine, and renaming Kyiv not to Lviv, but to ‘L’viv,’ so that the Russians definitely won’t get confused about where we’ve ‘shrunk’ to.” And Putin can boldly come out and say: “Look, the entire Kyiv regime has now definitely shrunk down to Lviv, and we have won, because all that’s left of Ukraine is Western Ukraine.” This is exactly the same as if we were to rename part of the Donbas.
There’s just one very big question that arises with these renamings: first, how should we rename Zaporizhzhia, and where should we annex it? Should we call it Dnipropetrovsk so there’s a Dnipropetrovsk Oblast? But Dnipro is still just Dnipro, and that might confuse the Russians a bit.
And again, what are we supposed to do then with Kupiansk, and what about Malaya Tokmachka? Because these questions remain unresolved: who will control them? Because supposedly the Russians control them, but there’s no control there whatsoever.
In other words, this whole set of delusions swirling around in Trump’s head and those of his negotiators – and, in fact, at times even in Putin’s own head – spills out into ideas that show just how little those people understand.
I don’t know – in principle, you could just advise Trump to leak this through *The Wall Street Journal*, *The Economist*, or whoever: Iran could be renamed something. Trump loves to rename things, after all. Rename Iran “Israel” and say, “That’s it, we’ve won.” Or make it the 52nd state of the United States, and end the war with Iran that way, too. That would help, surely? It would definitely help, because that threat would cease to exist. Or maybe not, because perhaps that’s not the issue.
It’s getting harder and harder to even comment half-seriously on all this nonsense. All this “Trump-speak” is gaining momentum in a rather frivolous way. And yet, this wasn’t said out loud, not off the record as he likes to do, amid the roar of engines where no one hears or makes out anything, and where it’s easy to accuse someone of spreading “fake news.”
But this was some kind of leak directly from certain sources. In other words, it was definitely discussed, and such ideas are definitely circulating there. And if such ideas are circulating there, you understand how close we’re getting to peace from the United States’ perspective. Nonsense.
Once again, the only sensible source here is a reasonable idea – one we’ve been talking about for a long time – namely, that Ukrainians, for example, should stop referring to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as the “Donbas.” What is the Donbas? Which Donbas is Russia fighting for? We aren’t fighting for the Donbas. We intend to reclaim the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, not whatever the Russians made up in order to populate these territories back in the days of Soviet industrialization.
That’s why place names and narratives always go hand in hand. And we, too, must understand that if we don’t get drawn into the Russians’ verbal games regarding how they refer to our territories, then we, in fact, remain on our own level.
And by the way, here’s a very striking example – our Oleshky. Because in Russian, they aren’t “Alyoshki,” as they used to call them; they were supposed to be Tsjurupinsk, as it was before. But for some reason, the Russians forgot what it’s called and are using our narratives, because we were in a stronger informational position, and they were forced to translate the Ukrainian names.
It’s the same here. Here we’re translating “Donbas” because the Russians are oppressing us there. And that casts a shadow over the whole thing. What are we even talking about? Because Donbas doesn’t exist.
Furthermore, if you look at the coal basin itself as it is, the Russians can confidently say: “Well, if we’re talking about Donbas, then let’s hand over Pavlohrad as well, because it’s also part of the Donetsk coal basin, which is included, but it’s not part of the Donetsk region.” Honestly, I don’t even know how to comment on this anymore, except to ask: how do we call an ambulance to the White House? Because that might be the only thing that will save us – and the whole world – from what’s going to happen next.
Is the gasoline shortage in Russia really just “hype”?
The Russians are short on gasoline, and oil refining is down by 30%. But is this really just a panic? It seemed to me that it was something else – our renewed, effective long-range strikes?
I believe we should “go along with Russian talking points and narratives, acknowledge that they’re actually right, that the panic is indeed to blame, switch to Russian, and call on the Russian authorities to deal with the panic.” Because it’s very prevalent and greatly aids our information operations against Russia – stirring up panic, chaos, and so on.
That’s why at every gas station in Russia, we need to station a police officer alongside FSB agents who will arrest people who claim they’re standing in line, rather than just out for a walk. I believe this would be very effective in helping us, and it would also be very effective in helping Russia itself figure out what’s going on in the world and somehow move forward in that direction.
True, we haven’t crippled 30% of Russia’s oil refining capacity, but that’s “impossible under a powerful regime and the great Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.” It’s all just Russian “hype.” Ordinary people are standing in lines and creating this image for the whole world to see. Something needs to be done about this.
And they have the Federal Security Service, they have the police – in which, by the way, according to Russian public opinion polls, trust is rapidly growing in this police state. So I think they need to sort this out. We have to throw up our hands and complain that our Unmanned Systems Forces and other special units are, after all, really attacking “the wrong places.”
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