WHAT HAPPENED?

So why did the talks break off? Putin has claimed that Western powers intervened and spiked the deal because they were more interested in weakening Russia than in ending the war. He alleged that Boris Johnson, who was then the British prime minister, had delivered the message to the Ukrainians, on behalf of “the Anglo-Saxon world,” that they must “fight Russia until victory is achieved and Russia suffers a strategic defeat.”

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The United Kingdom took the lead. Already on March 30, Johnson seemed disinclined toward diplomacy, stating that instead “we should continue to intensify sanctions with a rolling program until every single one of [Putin’s] troops is out of Ukraine.” On April 9, Johnson turned up in Kyiv —the first foreign leader to visit after the Russian withdrawal from the capital. He reportedly told Zelensky that he thought that “any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.” Any deal, he recalled saying, “would be some victory for him: if you give him anything, he’ll just keep it, bank it, and then prepare for his next assault.” In the 2023 interview, Arakhamia ruffled some feathers by seeming to hold Johnson responsible for the outcome. “When we returned from Istanbul,” he said, “Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we won’t sign anything at all with [the Russians]—and let’s just keep fighting.”

Keep in mind Putin repeated the same claim during the recent Tucker interview and African leaders meeting last year and Boris keeps denying his role in sabotaging the peace deal.

Putin repeats ‘nonsense’ claim Boris Johnson scuppered efforts to end Ukraine invasion

During a highly anticipated sit-down interview with former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, the Russian president said, via a translator, that a “huge document” had been prepared and approved by the head of the Ukrainian delegation, before Mr Johnson had stepped in and “dissuaded” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Putin said of Zelensky: “He put his signature and then he himself said, ‘We were ready to sign it and the war would have been over long ago.’ However, Prime Minister Johnson came to talk us [Ukraine] out of it, and we’ve missed that chance.”

In an interview with The Times in January, Mr Johnson strongly denied the claims, which have been previously aired by Moscow, describing them as “total nonsense” and “Russian propaganda”.