Russia has been offered the chance to hold new referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories as part of secret negotiations with former U.S. officials engaging in backchannel diplomacy, according to a new report. An unnamed former American official was quoted as telling The Moscow Times he has been traveling to Moscow every three months to take part in the negotiations. According to him, Moscow rejected a proposal for fair new elections in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, where Russia held sham referendums last fall to proclaim that the Ukrainian territories were now part of Russia “forever.” NBC News reported on the discussions earlier this month, with sources saying the Biden administration was aware of the talks but had not directed them and that former officials had briefed the White House National Security Council on talks with the Russian foreign minister. The unnamed official quoted in the latest report said Russian officials “don’t know how to define victory or defeat. In fact, some of the elites to whom we spoke had never wanted the war in the first place, even saying it had been a complete mistake,” the former official was quoted as saying, adding that Washington needs Russia to be “strong enough” to keep stability. “Russian power is not necessarily a bad thing,” he said.
