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A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2024
The origins of the war in Ukraine can be traced back to the ouster of Ukrainian President Yanukovych in February 2014. The Russians labelled it a coup, realists would say it was unconstitutional, and British officials would shrug their shoulders.
After Russia annexed Crimea and as insurgency broke out in the Donbas, the French and Germans launched a peace process involving the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine. From this so-called 'Normandy format' emerged two peace deals named the Minsk agreements. But the UK was sidelined from the peace process and the Americans suspicious of it.
Left out, Britian, supported by the US, pushed sanctions as the vehicle to contain Russia, running counter to what the French and Germans were trying to achieve. By the summer of 2015, the Minsk agreements had become sidelined, and sanctions were set in stone.
From seeing Putin in Northern Ireland in 2013, to working at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014-2019, then authorising sanctions against Russia in 2022, Ian had a ringside seat to the failure in British diplomacy that led to war in Ukraine.
Ian Proud was a member of HM Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. Ian organised the 2013 G8 Summit in Northern Ireland which marked Vladimir Putin's last visit to the UK. From July 2014 to February 2019 he was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow where he advised UK Ministers on sanctions against Russia. He was Chair of the Russia Crisis Committee, Director of the Diplomatic Academy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Anglo-American School of Moscow. He speaks Russian and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
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