DISINFO: The West blocked peace talks in 2022 so this time there won’t be an early truce.
SUMMARY
Russia has learnt the lessons of the recent past. In 2022, Moscow and Kyiv signed the principles of an agreement proposed by the Ukrainian delegation, and then the West forbid them to sign a treaty based on those same principles. So now when they say: 'Let’s have a ceasefire and then we will see', Russia has been there before and won’t fall for this.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative accusing Western countries of derailing a peace agreement in 2022, aiming to portray them as opposed to peace negotiations. This is an attempt to shape the information environment in favour of the Kremlin around ongoing peace conversations between the US, Russia and Ukraine. Talking about unsubstantiated allegations as if they were established facts while introducing minor variations, as in this case, is a frequent pro-Kremlin disinformation technique.
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 the claims that the West forced Ukraine to abandon peace, that Boris Johnson derailed the 2022 Istanbul peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, that the UK violated the Istanbul Accords in 2022 and now pushes the EU towards war with Russia, or that Boris Johnson prohibited Kyiv from signing an agreement with Russia in 2022.