Former Israeli Prime Minister: US Blocked Peace/Ceasefire Agreement Between Russia & Ukraine 9 Days into Invasion

• Former Israeli Prime Minister: US Blocked Peace/Ceasefire Agreement Between Russia & Ukraine 9 Days into Invasion
  by Michael Tracey, https://threadreaderapp.com/
  The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett just confirmed what any rational observer could’ve surmised: Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary agreement during the early phase of the war — “Both sides very much wanted a ceasefire,” Bennett said — but the US “blocked it”
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  Bennett was one of the few world leaders seen as impartial and trustworthy by both Putin and Zelensky. So when the invasion happened, he quickly took on a role as “shuttle diplomacy” mediator. He said he personally facilitated exchanges between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators
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  On March 5, 2022 — nine days after the invasion — Bennett secretly went to Moscow and met with Putin. Bennet says Putin agreed to two “big concessions” — renouncing the “denazification” of Ukraine, understood to mean regime change, and renouncing the “disarmament” of Ukraine
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  Bennett says that simultaneously to this –again, based on his direct, intensive involvement in the day-to-day negotiations — Zelensky also agreed to a “big concession,” and would officially renounce NATO membership.
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  “I say to myself wow, that’s a huge shift,” Bennett recounts
  Speaking about this publicly for what he says is the first time, Bennett is pressed by the interviewer about what odds of success he had given to a diplomatic agreement last March/April. Bennett insists there was at least an “over 50% chance of agreement”
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