On December 17, 2021, while tens of thousands of Russian soldiers massed on the Ukrainian borders, the Kremlin published two draft security agreements addressed to the United States and NATO.
These documents were in reality an ultimatum: stop NATO expansion, permanently exclude Ukraine from the alliance, and roll back Western military activity in Eastern Europe. The West refused central demands, and just over two months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his army beyond Ukraine’s borders to settle by force what he had not dictated on paper.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the January 2022 negotiations with Washington, said on Thursday that Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi had returned to the “ideas and approaches” of the original plans during peace talks with Ukrainian and US representatives.
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Moscow’s demands for NATO expansion and its own security, he insisted, will not go away. Except that now the Kremlin is demanding almost five years of interest.
Punitive damages
The demands of December 2021 were extensive to say the least.
Russia wanted NATO to close its doors to new members, notably Ukraine; America must stop building military ties and bases in former Soviet republics outside of NATO; and the alliance to return military deployments in Eastern Europe to May 1997 levels, before its post-Cold War expansion. Moscow also wanted NATO military activity to be banned in Ukraine, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and for US nuclear weapons stationed abroad to be repatriated.
In short, Putin wanted a say in which countries could join NATO and where its forces would go. This was the price of peace before the Russian invasion; now the Kremlin has added costly surcharges.
On Thursday, Putin told U.S. envoys that the only acceptable dividing line for a future deal was Russia’s “state border,” which Moscow says includes all of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, including territories currently outside Russia’s control.
In other words, kyiv must cede the lands that Russian soldiers failed to conquer, then accept restrictions on its ability to resist them next time. These stipulations are not from December 2021 at all, but resemble a Russian memorandum issued in June 2025 that demanded recognition of its annexations, permanent Ukrainian neutrality, no foreign troops or bases on Ukrainian soil, and strict limits on kyiv’s armed forces.
The Kremlin’s argument is simple. Russia will continue to advance westward, inch by blood-soaked inch, and the longer Ukraine resists, the higher the price will be. Never mind that Ukrainian counterattacks have regained ground this year and Russia’s war bill continues to grow.
Raise the stakes
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that Russia suffered 1.4 million battlefield casualties, including up to 450,000 deaths, through June 2026. A dataset allegedly stolen from Russian statistics agency Rosstat by hackers earlier this month appeared to corroborate a death toll of more than 400,000 in Russia – although this claim has not been verified and Rosstat denies the leak.
Beyond the bloodshed, Russia also faces labor shortages, demographic pressures and an economy that its own central bank projects will grow less than 1% this year. But Moscow has no intention of letting its own costs limit its demands.
According to German media outlet Bild, unofficial peace proposals attributed to Putin’s inner circle insist that Finland must leave NATO and demand the withdrawal of NATO military bases in the Baltic states.
Unsurprisingly, the Finns were offended. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen dismissed the reported demands as “absolutely scandalous”, while Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said Finland’s NATO membership belonged to Helsinki and the alliance alone.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Friday that Russian negotiators had demanded Finland’s departure, but Moscow is openly exploring another way to weaken NATO from within.
One-on-one
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry official Alexei Drobinin proposed an alternative approach to ensuring peace in Europe. Moscow could negotiate bilateral non-aggression pacts with each NATO country, offering them additional Russian security guarantees rather than relying on a grand agreement with the alliance.
Such pacts would not automatically replace NATO’s all-important Article 5. The North Atlantic Treaty on which the alliance is based allows member states to enter into agreements with other countries provided they do not conflict with the alliance’s obligations.
But the principle of collective defense is NATO’s North Star, the fundamental concept that underpins the 32-nation alliance. Moscow understands that opposing a united NATO is a foolish prospect; Instead, Putin must divide and rule.
The Kremlin could attempt to politically dismantle what its armed forces could never defeat on the battlefield by attempting to strike deals on a case-by-case basis with each country. Move one, two, three supporting players out of position, and the entire house of cards could collapse amid political infighting and disunity.
Europe must not take the bait. And negotiators in Washington should not pressure NATO allies to accept it. America cannot make Europe safer by helping Moscow break its alliance.
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