On November 26, the pro-Kremlin media Alt-Info and the Facebook pages of the “Conservative Movement” party (1;2), as well as the portal “Georgia First” and the “People’s Power” party, reported that after the Russia-Ukraine talks were held in Istanbul, the current Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, told the Ukrainians not to sign anything and “to just fight.” According to the above-mentioned sources, the peace talks failed because of Boris Johnson. The authors of the posts cite the interview of Davit Arakhamia, the chairman of the parliamentary faction of the ruling party of Ukraine.
Tengiz Omanidze, Host at “Alt-Info”: “As it turns out, the reason for the failure of the peace talks held in Istanbul after the start of the war in Ukraine, was the position of the current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.”
The claim that the Russia-Ukraine peace talks failed because of Boris Johnson’s position is manipulative. In fact, the interview of Davit Arakhamia reveals that the Ukrainian side was not going to agree to the agreement even before Johnson’s call, noting that the British Prime Minister did not put pressure on their position.
What did Arakhamia actually say?
Davit Arakhamia spoke on the air of Ukrainian 1+1 about the negotiations with Russia in 2022. According to Arakhamia, the Russian delegation promised Ukraine peace in exchange for refusing to join NATO.
“They were hoping almost to the end to put pressure on us to sign such a document and accept neutrality. It was a big deal for them. They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political “additions” to denazification, the Russian-speaking population, and blah blah blah…” Arakhamia said.
To the journalist’s question why Ukraine did not agree to this point, Arakhamia answered that there was no trust in the Russians.
“First of all, in order to agree to this point, you have to change the constitution. Our aspiration towards NATO is written in the constitution. Also, there is no trust in the Russians that they will do this. This would only be possible if there were security guarantees. We couldn’t sign something, go away, everybody there would breathe a sigh of relief, and then they would come more prepared, because in fact, when they invaded, they were unprepared for such resistance. We could only work on this when we were 100% sure that this [intrusion] would never happen again. However, there is no such belief.
Also, when we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them and would just fight. – said Arakhamia.
Arakhamia also denied the fact that the Ukrainian delegation was ready to sign the document and Boris Johnson stopped them. According to his own words, the Western partners were informed about the negotiations and had seen the draft versions of the agreement, but they did not make decisions on behalf of Ukraine and could only give advice.
“In fact, they advised us not to agree to Russia’s ephemeral guarantees, which were impossible to give then.” – said David Arakhamia.
Accordingly, David Arakhamia did not say that Ukraine was ready to sign a document promising peace in exchange for neutrality. Arakhamia’s interview reveals that Ukraine was not going to sign the document even before receiving Boris Johnson’s advice, therefore, it is manipulative to claim that the Russia-Ukraine agreement failed because of Boris Johnson or that Ukraine made the decision because of his position.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.
