As Russia embarked on its invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a deal struck with Ukraine by a top aide that would have kept the former Soviet state out of the NATO alliance, according to a report.
Dmitry Kozak, Putin's deputy chief of staff, reportedly informed the Russian leader that he had negotiated the agreement with Ukraine immediately after Russia's Feb. 24 invasion and recommended to Putin that he accept the deal, according to Reuters. Putin instead opted to press on with the invasion, despite the fact that the deal would've removed a significant grievance that the Russian president used to justify the military incursion into the country.
Putin reportedly supported negotiations between Kozak, who is Ukrainian-born, and Kyiv, but later decided that he wanted to annex Ukrainian territory and thus thought the provisional deal preventing Ukraine from joining NATO didn't benefit Russia enough to stop the war, according to the report.
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