Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed as “total nonsense” the Kremlin’s claim he derailed a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
In recent months, the echelons of power in Russia have been accusing Mr Johnson of barring Ukraine from accepting the peace terms offered by the Kremlin in March 2022, just weeks into the illegal invasion.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, claimed late last year that Mr Johnson, who was Britain’s Prime Minister in early 2022, had ordered Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky not to strike any agreement with Moscow.
She alleged: “Johnson banned Kyiv from signing a peace agreement with Russia following negotiations in Istanbul at the end of March 2022 and demanded the continuation of hostilities against Russia.”
At the time, the Kremlin had reportedly offered to end the invasion in exchange for Ukraine renouncing its ambition to join NATO.
A few weeks after Ms Zakharova’s allegations, Mr Johnson told The Times: “This is nothing but total nonsense and Russian propaganda.”
Mr Johnson, who visited Kyiv in April 2022 and walked through the streets of the war-torn city alongside Mr Zelensky, opened up on his discussions with the Ukrainian President in the wake of the peace talks in Istanbul.
After saying he had pledged to Mr Zelensky that Britain would support Ukraine “a thousand percent”, he told The Wall Street Journal: “I was a bit worried at that stage. I could not see for the life of me what the deal could be, and I thought that any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.”
After Mr Johnson’s visit to Kyiv, Downing Street said that he had “urged against any negotiations with Russia on terms that gave credence to the Kremlin’s false narrative for the invasion, but stressed that this was a decision for the Ukrainian government”.
The allegations by the Kremlin seemingly stemmed from comments on the Istanbul negotiations made in November by David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People Party.
During an interview with Ukrainian journalist Natalia Moseychuk, he said: “They really hoped almost to the last that they would put the squeeze on us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the biggest thing for them. They were ready to end the war if we took – as Finland once did – neutrality and made commitments that we would not join NATO. This was the key point.”
Mr Arakhamia, also known as David Braun, added at the time that Mr Johnson had advised, rather than ordered, Ukraine not to “sign anything with [Russia] at all, and let’s just fight”.
This comment, the politician said this week upon commenting on the debate sparked by Russia regarding the peace talks, was deliberately distorted by the Kremlin. He said: “Neither then nor now do any of our [western] partners give Ukraine instructions on how to build its defences or what political decisions to take. This is the sovereign right of the Ukrainian leadership.”
No peace deal with Russia was possible in early 2022 as the Kremlin had ordered the invasion solely “for the sake of seizing territories, killing citizens and overthrowing a democratic government”, Mr Arakhamia added.
Following the discovery in April 2022 of the atrocities committed on civilians in Bucha, which Moscow denies were carried out by its soldiers, all hopes for the immediate end of the war were shattered.
Mr Zelensky has since repeated several times the war in Ukraine will be over only when the country will conquer back all of its internationally recognised territory.
