Niall Ferguson
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It wasn't the original 28-point plan.
Doesn't it feel like it was written by Lavrov?
It felt like a Russian peace plan.
It wasn't written by Lavrov.
It may have been written by another Russian or co-authored.
It certainly wasn't written by Lavrov.
American diplomats, but I think it's fair to say that it was agreed between Russians, Ukrainians, Witkow, Kushner.
I think that's what happened.
The Ukrainians were actually ready because they desperately need a break.
They need a ceasefire.
And then the Europeans were the ones who said, no, no, no, we need to make it much, much tougher.
And that...
killed the negotiation.
That's an important point that is not, I think, widely understood.
And I think I can speak with some authority on this.
So we have to recognize that this piece won't be pretty.
It will involve almost certainly territorial sessions.
The language of that's important.
In the original plan, it wasn't that the Russians acquired de jure ownership of Donbass.
It was de facto.