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By David Averre
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Russia's lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky had bigger fish to fry than mere peace in Ukraine at talks with representatives from Kyiv and Washington in Abu Dhabi this week.
The real task, Medinsky declared, was to create a comprehensive European security system: a "new, modern Yalta and Potsdam imbued with the spirit of Helsinki"—the kind of agreement that might "preserve peace for decades, perhaps centuries."
Moscow’s point man was referring to the Helsinki Final Act, also known as the Helsinki Accords of 1975: a landmark Cold War agreement under which 35 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, established common rules for European security. At the time, it was widely seen as a diplomatic victory for Moscow; now the Kremlin wants Helsinki's principles to underpin the next European security order.
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What Medinsky neglected to acknowledge is that Russia has spent the past decade violating some of Helsinki's most fundamental commitments.
Plain for All to See
When Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev arrived in Helsinki on July 30, 1975, he had good reason to be pleased. Moscow had sought an agreement on European security for more than two decades, hoping to secure Western acceptance of the postwar boundaries that had consolidated Soviet influence behind the Iron Curtain. Two days later, the accords were signed.
But they were far from a simple Soviet-American handshake deal over a new map of Europe. Thirty-five nations had spent years negotiating a framework to manage Cold War tensions, build confidence between rival military blocs, and establish a set of key tenets that would govern future relations between states. The resulting Helsinki Final Act was a political agreement, not a legally binding treaty, but its 10 guiding principles were remarkably clear and straightforward.
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Principle I, on sovereign equality, recognized each state's right to determine its own political and security arrangements, including the freedom to enter military alliances or choose neutrality.
Principle II prohibited the threat or use of force against another state's territorial integrity or political independence, including military coercion intended to compel it to surrender sovereign rights. "No consideration may be invoked" to justify force contrary to that principle, it said.
Principle IV, on territorial integrity, prohibited military occupation or the acquisition of another state's territory through force in violation of international law. "No such occupation or acquisition will be recognized as legal."
By any measure, Russia's actions over the past decade-plus are in direct contravention of each of those principles.
Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and subsequently proclaimed the annexation of four additional Ukrainian regions, parts of which it still doesn't control after nearly five years of combat operations.
Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and accept permanent neutrality as a condition of peace. Helsinki did not prohibit neutrality; on the contrary, it advocated for a state's right to choose with whom it aligns. But the Final Act explicitly states that the decision belonged to sovereign states, not their more powerful neighbors.
Then again, according to the Kremlin, the West has spent decades violating Helsinki's spirit too.
The View From Moscow
Russia tells a very different story about how we descended into war in Ukraine. It begins not in February 2022, or even 2014, but with decades of what Moscow regards as the systematic erosion of its security.
Various Russian officials, including Medinsky, have said Russia's security proposals from December 2021—which demanded that NATO rule out Ukrainian membership and restrict military activity in Eastern Europe—remain part of Moscow's negotiating position.
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Evgeny Buzhinsky, a retired Russian lieutenant general and former senior military treaty negotiator who now chairs Russia's PIR Center international security think tank, described Western assurances that NATO is fundamentally defensive as little more than "baby talk" in an interview with Newsweek.
"We don't buy that. Now we are encircled by NATO, troop deployment, missiles, everything. We want to be sure that we don't have offensive potential on our borders," he said. "We want the permanent agreement about durable peace, about a new structure of European security."
Helsinki recognized the "indivisibility of security in Europe": the idea that the security of one country is inseparable from that of its neighbors, and that lasting stability would never be achieved by considering each state’s interests in isolation. This notion was articulated more explicitly in the 1999 Charter for European Security, a document endorsed by Russia and Western governments alike, which declared that no country should strengthen its own security at the expense of another.
Moscow argues that successive rounds of NATO enlargement from 1999 onwards, the prospect of Ukraine joining the alliance, and European military assistance to Kyiv have fundamentally undermined that principle.
Still, one might wonder how the Kremlin expects to construct a new European security system, especially one “imbued with the spirit of Helsinki,” without actually engaging with Europe.
A Seat at the Table
Helsinki brought together 35 sovereign states to negotiate the continent's future security arrangements. Yet Medinsky this week confirmed Russia’s delegation didn’t speak to a single European representative and suggested Europeans could only join talks “once their consciences had awakened.”
This is due in part to the European Union’s characteristically bureaucratic inability to decide who can represent the bloc at negotiations, but mostly due to Moscow’s deep conviction that Europe’s political establishment regards it with nothing but contempt.
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“So much rhetoric on the part of the Europeans has been produced about the strategic defeat of Russia,” Buzhinsky said. “How can we conduct constructive negotiations with the European Union with so much Russophobia on the part of the majority of its states?”
He went on to add that “no Russian representative would ever sit” with the likes of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen or EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, whom he singled out as “stupid” and “offensive.”
Thankfully, Washington appears unwilling to let Moscow exclude Europe indefinitely. Trump's son-in-law-cum-envoy Jared Kushner insisted that European governments must be involved in future negotiations, but couldn't resist a dig at Brussels.
"If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation." He might be right.
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