Russia reportedly demands Finland leave NATO and all of Donbas in Ukraine talks

Russia's reported demands

The German newspaper Bild, citing diplomatic sources, reports that Russian negotiators put a list of demands to European representatives at informal talks in Abu Dhabi. According to the paper, the proposals go well beyond the future of Ukraine's territory and aim at what it calls a "new European security order." The first part concerns Ukraine itself. Russia would keep the land it occupies now and take the entire Donbas, including the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk that Kyiv still administers. Ukraine would be permanently neutral and barred from NATO, while its path to EU membership would stay open.

Ports, the Baltics and Moldova

The demands also extend to the Black Sea and the Baltic. Odesa and Mykolaiv would be demilitarized so that Ukraine could not use them as naval bases, and separate agreements would guarantee freedom of navigation in both seas. On NATO, Bild says Moscow wants Finland to withdraw from the alliance and wants no NATO military bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with Finland returning to the status it held before it joined. Moldova would become a federal republic made up of Moldova proper, Transnistria and Gagauzia. If Moldova joined the EU, the two regions would be entitled to hold referendums on independence. In return, Russia would offer to withdraw nuclear weapons from Belarus and drop plans to station intermediate-range missiles there. The same account says Moscow would also be prepared to pull its troops out of Transnistria, and that the Kremlin wants a complete halt to NATO expansion. Russian officials continue to argue that Western governments once promised not to expand the alliance eastward.

Reactions from Helsinki and the Kremlin

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, partly denied the reports, saying the Finland question would not even have been discussed. Finnish Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen, a member of the National Coalition Party that sits in the Finnish government, said such matters are not subject to negotiation and that Russia knows this. He called even suggesting it completely outrageous. Häkkänen added that Moscow has pressed the same demand for some time and hopes NATO members will restrain themselves in Russia's interest. He argued that the softer the West's stance on Russia's military ambitions, the more Russia will test how far it can go. He also said he had no great expectations for the Abu Dhabi talks.

Talks and sourcing

US special envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN, after a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, that he believes progress has been made. Bild says its information came from people close to Vladimir Putin, and it describes Russia as ready to make concessions without saying what they would be. The report was published on Friday, 13 November, and the Abu Dhabi discussions were informal, according to the paper. Peskov's denial covered only part of the list. The coverage reviewed does not show Moscow confirming the rest of the demands.