DISINFO: Kyiv's refusal to continue negotiations in Istanbul in 2022 caused by pressure from London
SUMMARY
Kiev's refusal to continue peace negotiations in Istanbul was due to direct pressure from London. It is well known that the document for a peace agreement was de facto initialled. This pressure is what caused the Ukrainians to refuse to continue and finalise the work on the document, according to representatives from the Ukrainian side who participated in the talks.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation claim timed to undermining the process of peace talks hosted by Switzerland 15-16 June 2024.
The claim is based on a distorted interpretation of an interview with Davit Arakhamia, one of the leading members of the Ukrainian negotiation team. This disingenuous distortion pretends that Arakhamia acknowledged that the Ukrainian delegation was ready to sign the document presented by Russia but Boris Johnson stopped them.
This claim has been debunked multiple times (see here and here), but continues to emerge in the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem as it serves to promote the false narrative that Moscow is open to peace negotiations while the West is only interested in continuing the war in Ukraine as a proxy conflict against Russia.
Based on Arakhamia’s statements, Western partners were kept informed about the negotiations and had access to the draft versions of the agreement, but they did not make decisions for Ukraine and could only offer advice. Arakhamia clarified in his interview that Ukraine had already decided not to sign the document even before receiving advice from Boris Johnson. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has strongly denied that Ukraine had agreed to Russia’s proposal, as did Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, who recalled of the Russian negotiation team: “We realised that these are not people sent for talks, but for our capitulation”. The Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov also interviewed many of the participants in the conversations, including Kuleba and Johnson, who refuted Russia’s allegations about a deal having been reached before Johnson’s intervention. Other observers have examined the evidence and concluded the same.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Boris Johnson derailed the 2022 Istanbul peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, that Boris Johnson and Anglo-Saxons banned Ukraine from settling agreement with Russia, that Zelenskyy’s peace plan is a war formula, that Russia never rejected a peaceful solution in Ukraine but Kyiv refuses to negotiate, or that the EU does not want peace, only total defeat of Russia.