By David Averre
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On December 17, 2021, with tens of thousands of Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, the Kremlin published two draft security agreements addressed to the United States and NATO.
The documents were effectively an ultimatum: halt NATO expansion, permanently exclude Ukraine from the alliance, and roll back Western military activity across Eastern Europe. The West refused the central demands, and just over two months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his army across Ukraine’s borders to settle by force what he had failed to dictate on paper.
Now, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led Moscow’s January 2022 negotiations with Washington, said Thursday that Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi had returned to the "ideas and approaches" of the original drafts during peace talks with Ukrainian and U.S. representatives.
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Moscow’s demands over NATO expansion and its own security, he insisted, were not going away. Except now the Kremlin wants nearly five years’ worth of interest.
Punitive Damages
The December 2021 demands were extensive, to say the least.
Russia wanted NATO to close its doors to new members, especially Ukraine; America to stop building military ties and bases in former Soviet republics outside NATO; and the alliance to roll back military deployments in Eastern Europe to May 1997 levels, before its post-Cold War expansion. Moscow also wanted NATO military activity barred in Ukraine, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and American nuclear weapons stationed abroad brought home.
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In short, Putin wanted a say over which countries could join NATO—and where its forces could go. That was the price of peace before Russia invaded; now the Kremlin has added some expensive surcharges.
On Thursday, Putin told American envoys that the only acceptable line of demarcation for a future deal was Russia’s "state border," which Moscow claims includes all of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, including territory currently beyond Russia’s control.
In other words, Kyiv must hand over land Russian soldiers have 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 published 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 straightforward. Russia will keep grinding westward, inch by blood-soaked inch, and the longer Ukraine resists, the higher the price. Never mind that Ukrainian counterattacks have retaken ground this year—and that Russia’s own war tab keeps growing.
Raising the Stakes
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated Russia had 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 seemed to corroborate a Russian death toll of more than 400,000—though the claim has not been verified, and Rosstat denies the leak.
Beyond the bloodshed, Russia also faces worker shortages, demographic pressures and an economy its own Central Bank expects to grow less than 1 percent this year. But Moscow has no intention of allowing its own costs to limit its demands.
According to German outlet Bild, unofficial peace proposals attributed to Putin’s inner circle insist that Finland must leave NATO and demand the removal of NATO military bases in the Baltic states.
The Finns, unsurprisingly, took offense. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen dismissed the reported demands as "absolutely outrageous" while Foreign Affairs Minister Elina Valtonen declared Finland’s NATO membership was for Helsinki and the alliance alone to decide.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday denied 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 Alexey Drobinin floated an alternative approach to guaranteeing peace in Europe. Moscow could negotiate bilateral nonaggression pacts with individual NATO countries, offering them additional Russian security guarantees rather than relying on a grand bargain with the alliance.
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Such pacts would not automatically override NATO’s all-important Article 5. The North Atlantic Treaty on which the alliance is based allows member states to strike deals with other countries provided they don’t conflict with alliance obligations.
But the principle of collective defense is NATO’s North Star—the foundational concept that underpins the 32-nation alliance. Moscow understands that confronting a united NATO is a foolish prospect; Putin must instead divide to conquer.
The Kremlin might attempt to dismantle politically what its armed forces could never defeat on the battlefield by attempting to strike case-by-case deals with individual countries. Nudge one, two, three supporting players out of position, and the whole house of cards could come tumbling down amid political infighting and disunity.
Europe must not take the bait. And Washington’s negotiators must not pressure NATO allies to accept it. America can’t broker a safer Europe by helping Moscow pick its alliance apart.
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