According to some media reports, an alternative European version has already emerged — one far more advantageous for Ukraine. There is still no clarity about which of the proposed versions Moscow will ultimately accept. And finally, a sensational leak has completely scrambled the picture. Bloomberg, as Minval Politika has already reported, published transcripts of two phone conversations between Yuri Ushakov, aide to the president of Russia, and Donald Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff, as well as a separate conversation between Ushakov and Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev. And if this leak is genuine, one thing becomes clear: the Russian side, to put it delicately, played a far more active role in preparing the plan than one would expect from a proposal presented on behalf of the United States.
This is a good moment to recall the famous WikiLeaks scandal, when a massive trove of supposedly secret U.S. State Department cables burst into the open thanks to Julian Assange. The current leak is isolated and “targeted,” but the resonance is no less significant. As cybersecurity experts repeatedly note, absolutely reliable encryption, unbreakable messengers, and perfectly secure computers simply do not exist. For every “lock,” there is always a “key.” And the consequences follow from that.
It is still difficult to build any truly reliable forecasts about what will now happen to the American plan for a settlement in Ukraine. It is obvious that it will be much harder for the U.S. administration to push it through than before. Even harder is predicting the domestic political fallout within the United States — and even within Donald Trump’s own team.
But something else is already clear today. A war fought with foreign support always carries the risk that, at the most decisive moment, those external patrons will suddenly rediscover their own interests — or revise their understanding of those interests — and the long-awaited support may be reduced. Ukraine, unlike other post-Soviet countries that faced external aggression and violations of their territorial integrity, received unprecedented support from the very beginning — both moral and material. But, first, the promises and guarantees of that support have diverged sharply from what the West has actually provided. And second, as practice shows, the West has far more actors willing and ready to restore relations with Russia at Ukraine’s expense than many assumed.
Here it is impossible not to draw parallels with Azerbaijan’s own experience of war and victory. For three decades of conflict, our country did not receive even a tenth of the support Ukraine enjoys today. Of course, many “Western romantics” — and even more often, grant recipients — earnestly insisted that if we built the “right kind of democracy,” the West would deliver Karabakh to us on a silver platter.
The experience of Georgia and the “five-day war,” when the country — despite all the Western praise for Saakashvili’s reforms — was simply abandoned by its Western allies, apparently taught no one anything. Today, after the 44-day Patriotic War of 2020 and the 2023 counterterrorism operations, for understandable reasons no one wishes to mentally return to the time when 20% of our territory remained under Armenian occupation and Armenian aggressors reveled in their illusory “victor status.” Yet it was during that period that many key decisions were made. It was not only that Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire in 1994 while a territory the size of Lebanon remained under Armenian occupation. No less important is this: for more than a quarter century of negotiations, the mediators of the now-defunct OSCE Minsk Group also proposed “peace plans” that resembled nothing so much as a capitulation of Azerbaijan.
Recall: Armenia was to withdraw from five districts surrounding the former NKAO, while Karabakh itself — including Shusha, the Lachin district, and the Kalbajar district — would remain under Armenian control. Azerbaijan would have the right to return refugees to the five surrounding districts, but would not have the right to station its army there — only police and border guards with light weapons. Meanwhile, Karabakh would become a second Armenian state, complete with its own self-defense forces and the right to maintain external relations.
But Baku did not fall for these proposals. And one can imagine what it took at that time to not retreat at the negotiating table. Under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan brilliantly executed a strategy to restore its territories, skillfully combining military, political, and diplomatic tools — and that strategy brought the long-awaited victory.
Of course, no two wars are identical. But today, amid all the scandal surrounding the American plan, the words of President Aliyev sound more relevant than ever: do not accept the occupation of your land — and rely on your own resources.
Nurani
