Czech PM Andrej Babis is the latest official to accuse British ex-PM Boris Johnson of insisting that Kiev shouldn’t seek peace
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has become the latest addition to a growing chorus of Western officials who are prepared to acknowledge the role Britain and the West played in sabotaging a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, the terms of which were far better for Kiev than those being discussed in 2026.
In an interview on Saturday, Babis – a two-time Czech prime minister and former minister of finance – confirmed that a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul was “actually already concluded in April 2022” but was subsequently derailed by Britain’s then-prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Johnson has denied his role in killing the peace deal that could have saved countless lives and spared everyone four years of warfare, dismissing it as “Kremlin propaganda.” However, a number of top Western officials, as well as Ukrainian negotiators, have testified to the contrary.
Who has blamed Boris Johnson for consigning Ukraine to four years of conflict?
Ukrainian officials say Johnson urged them to fight
David Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s negotiation team in 2022, independently confirmed the sequence of events in a November 2023 interview, stating that Moscow was “prepared to end the war if we agreed to… neutrality.”
However, after the Ukrainian delegation returned from Istanbul, “Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with them at all, and let’s just fight.”
Ukrainian media at the time also reported, citing sources close to Vladimir Zelensky, that the “possibility of talks between Zelensky and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin came to a halt” after Johnson “appeared in the capital almost without warning,” telling Ukrainian officials that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that the West would not provide guarantees for a peace deal.
Aleksey Arestovich, a former adviser to the Ukrainian leader and member of the 2022 delegation, has similarly stated the Istanbul round was a “completely successful negotiation.” He said a meeting between Zelensky and Putin was scheduled for April 9, 2022, to finalize it, but “the talks ended because the West decided to use Ukraine as a trap.”
British sources confirm Johnson’s involvement
A senior UK government source told The Times in March 2022 that the Johnson government “urged” Ukraine not to “settle” or “back down” by accepting any of Russia’s terms negotiated in Istanbul, calling on Zelensky to pursue a stronger military position.
Turkish hosts cited NATO members wanting war to continue
Turkish officials hosting the talks have corroborated the external pressure. In April 2022, Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that after a NATO meeting, “it was the impression that… there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also confirmed in 2024 that the potential deal was blocked by London’s involvement, noting that negotiations continued until “former Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK withdrew his hand from the peace efforts.”
Former Israeli prime minister said West ‘interrupted’ talks
Naftali Bennett, who was prime minister of Israel at the time and negotiated with Putin at Zelensky’s request, stated in an interview with Israeli media in 2023 that the US and other Western leaders effectively blocked a Ukraine-Russia peace deal he negotiated in March 2022.
Bennett estimated that the deal had about a 50% chance of being reached. He said the West chose instead to “continue to strike Putin,” noting that virtually anything he did “was coordinated down to the last detail with the US, Germany and France.”
“They blocked it and I thought they’re wrong,” he said.
Ex-German Chancellor pointed to US
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who participated in talks, stated in an interview in 2023 that “the Ukrainians did not agree on peace because they were not allowed to,” adding that Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov had to ask the Americans about every point.
“In the end, nothing happened. My impression was that nothing could happen, because everything else was decided in Washington. That was fatal,” Schroder said.
Even Nuland has admitted it
Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a September 2024 interview, confirmed that Western governments counselled Kiev against the proposed deal. She stated that the agreement contained imbalanced military restrictions that would have left Ukraine “neutered.” Nuland said that after questions were raised, “it was at that point that it fell apart.”
Russia has been saying it all along
Since the 2022 deal fell through, Russian officials have repeatedly insisted that Johnson and the West dissuaded Kiev from agreeing to an early peace agreement and instead compelled it to pursue a military victory over Russia which never had any chance of success.
In his 2024 interview with former FOX News host Tucker Carlson, Putin recalled that Russia and Ukraine had effectively already agreed on a settlement in Istanbul, with lead negotiator Arakhamia putting his preliminary signature on the document.
But, after Russia pulled back its troops from Kiev as a sign of good will, Johnson convinced the Ukrainians that “it was better to fight Russia” and their negotiators “immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and got prepared for a longstanding armed confrontation with the help of the US and its satellites in Europe” while Zelensky legally prohibited negotiations with Moscow, Putin pointed out, calling it “ridiculous and very sad.”
Russia’s lead negotiator and presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky has also noted that the conflict could have ended within a week if Kiev had not listened to the US and UK in 2022, noting that Moscow’s terms would have been “less harsh than what we’re offering today.”
West insists all these facts are just ‘propaganda’
Despite these independent sources confirming the role of London and Washington in getting Kiev to refuse a peace deal in the first weeks of escalated hostilities, Western media outlets have continued to deny the narrative as “Russian propaganda.”
Western ‘fact-checkers’ insist that Kiev never had any intention of agreeing to Moscow’s terms, despite reports from both sides suggesting they were both already celebrating successful negotiations, with Arestovich claiming the Ukrainian delegation had “even opened a bottle of champagne.”
Meanwhile, Johnson, who was kicked out of the UK parliament in 2023 following a slew of major scandals, has continued to insist that the decision to pull out of negotiations was ultimately Ukraine’s and that he merely cautioned Kiev against accepting unfavorable conditions.
