At the start of the war, Russian Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak told Vladimir Putin that he had reached a tentative deal with Kiev in which Ukraine pledged not to join NATO, but that Putin backed out of the peace deal, Reuters reported , citing three sources close to the Russian leadership.
According to the sources of the publication, Kozak told Putin that, in his opinion, the deal he concluded would save Russia from the need to continue a large-scale occupation of Ukraine. Two of the three sources told the publication that the push to complete the deal came immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24. A few days later, Kozak decided that he had received Ukraine's agreement to the basic terms Russia was seeking and recommended that Putin sign the agreement, the sources said.
In response to the offer, Putin made it clear that the concessions negotiated by Kozak were not enough, that he expanded his goals to include the annexation of swathes of Ukrainian territory, the sources say. As a result, the deal fell through.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in response to a request from Reuters, said that the publication's information "has absolutely nothing to do with reality." Kozak did not respond to a request for comment, and Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak did not confirm to the publication that such a deal had been reached. “Today we clearly understand that the Russian side has never been interested in a peaceful settlement,” Podolyak added.
Before the war, Putin repeatedly said that NATO and its military infrastructure were moving closer to Russia's borders, accepting new members from Eastern Europe, and that the alliance was now preparing to include Ukraine as well. The possible entry of Ukraine into NATO was, according to Putin, one of the reasons for starting the war.