Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called the information that Kyiv and Moscow were close to a peace deal in the spring of 2022 “rumors” and a “false story” but under the influence of Great Britain, the agreement did not take place. He said this in a video comment posted on social network X.
“This is one of the favorite false stories spread by Russia and those who sympathize with it. If you look more closely at the facts, this whole story does not hold together,” the minister said.
Kuleba believes that this “story” is being spun by Russia in order to remove responsibility for the war and shift the blame to Ukraine.
“They want people to forget that it was Russia that launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022 and instead focus on the talks at the end of March 2022,” the diplomat said.
He said that at the Istanbul talks, Russia's demands were absurd and there was no prospect of peace.
“But our positions were so different, and Russia's demands were so absurd, that there was no prospect of any real solution. Those draft documents that were leaked to the media only reflect that there was a discussion, but cannot be considered the real text of the agreement,” Kuleba said.
He added that every diplomat knows the principle that “there is no agreement until everything is agreed upon.” “And we can say for sure that there were no agreements in March-April 2022.”
In addition, Kuleba called the information that the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson put pressure on Zelensky and urged him not to give in to the Kremlin a “ridiculous story.”
“Firstly, anyone who has ever met Zelensky knows that he is not the kind of person who can be pressured into making a decision. Secondly, because the negotiation process between the delegations actually continued in April and even in May, that is, long after Johnson's arrival,” the minister said.
It is worth noting that on November 24, 2023, in an interview, the leader of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, spoke about the Istanbul talks with Russia. He stated that the most important condition for the Russians at that time was Ukraine's neutrality. In addition, according to him, after the negotiating team returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said: “We're not going to sign anything with them at all, and let's just fight.”
