Boris Johnson called the version of Russian propaganda that he allegedly disrupted peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine “complete nonsense.”

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called “complete nonsense and Russian propaganda” claims that he disrupted peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in the spring of 2022. He said this in an interview with The Times.

According to Johnson, during a conversation with Vladimir Zelensky after peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, he was “concerned about the nature of any potential agreement” and promised that the UK would support Ukraine “a thousand percent”.

Allegations that Johnson disrupted the peace agreement emerged after statements by David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People party faction in the Verkhovna Rada and the head of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with the Russian Federation. In November 2023, in an interview with 1+1, Arakhamia, answering the question why Kyiv refused negotiations with Moscow in 2022, said, among other things:

When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them at all.” And, according to Arakhamia, he added: “Let’s just fight.”

Arakhamia also said that Kyiv did not sign the agreement, considering it a ploy that would allow the Russian army to regain its strength and then continue fighting again. However, Russian commentators considered Arakhamia's words about Johnson to confirm propaganda theories that Kyiv abandoned negotiations under pressure from Western partners.

In particular, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that Johnson “forbade” Kiev to sign peace agreements with Russia and stated that the “staged” in Bucha (this is how Russian authorities talk about the murder of civilians by the Russian military - note “Medusa”) was organized Kiev “as a pretext to disrupt the negotiation process.”

In a conversation with The Times, Arakhamia noted that Russia deliberately distorted his words to support its own version, and none of the Western officials could give orders to Zelensky “neither then nor now.” According to Arakhamia, Johnson's statement about the need to "just fight" was made in the context of Ukraine's consultations with Western allies about countering the Russian invasion.

• Russia and Ukraine were negotiating peace at the start of a full-scale war. Several rounds of negotiations took place in Belarus and Turkey. After Russian troops retreated from Kyiv, negotiations were frozen.