Judging from Davyd Arakhamia's interview to Ukrainian broadcaster 1+1, it was then-UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who persuaded the Kiev regime to nix the March 2022 negotiations with Russia less than a month after the beginning of the conflict.
"It is true that Boris Johnson was the person who ordered Zelensky not to stop fighting, and as a result it is Johnson and Joe Biden who are responsible for over 500,000 Ukrainian lives [...] Boris Johnson’s irrational, if not completely mad, decision guaranteed Ukraine would be destroyed and that’s exactly what has happened," Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer and State Department counter-terrorism analyst, said.
During the interview, Arakhamia - who headed the Ukrainian delegation during the negotiations with Russia in Belarus and Turkey in 2022 - noted that the centerpiece of the Russia-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, Turkey, was Ukraine's neutrality and guarantees that it wouldn't join NATO.
"Russia‘s original terms were very fair: number one— no NATO weapons would be located in Ukraine, which would put Russians in danger; and, second, no Nazi genocidal maniacs would be in political positions to continue slaughtering innocent Russians, or outlawing the Russian language and culture in Ukraine. Any reasonable person and nation would’ve accepted these terms," Bennett argued.
BoJo's Offer Kiev Couldn't Refuse
Meanwhile, some Russian observers are wondering what BoJo promised the Kiev regime to cause them to rush to nix the deal and throw all their resources into the conflict. Apparently, the British prime minister vowed all-out military support and money from the West.
Meanwhile, judging from other Western leaders' rhetoric, Johnson was not alone in derailing the deal. "This war will be won on the battlefield," European Union top diplomat Josep Borrell tweeted in April 2022, pledging hundreds of millions of euros for Kiev.
The same month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed that Washington wanted to see "Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done" in launching the special military operation. He argued that Russia should "not have the capability to very quickly reproduce" manpower and equipment. The US has disbursed over $100 billion in support for Ukraine's military effort since then.
Sergey Tsekov, a member of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, believes that Kiev decided to reject peace with Moscow in 2022 due to a lack of experience.
"The people in power in Ukraine got there accidentally - they are shallow, insufficiently experienced, perceiving some momentary tactical successes as successes of a strategic nature," Tsekov told the Russian press. Per him, many in Ukraine now regret that they failed to resolve the conflict diplomatically at the very beginning.
Zelensky is Equally to Blame for Derailing the Peace Deal
While speaking to the Ukrainian broadcaster, Arakhamia cited Ukraine's Constitution as yet another obstacle in the path of a peace agreement with Russia.
"To agree to this point, it was necessary to change the Constitution. Our path to NATO is enshrined in the Constitution," Arakhamia argued.
Yet, the idea of Ukraine's neutrality is not some Russian invention: the Eastern European country's "permanent neutrality" is enshrined in Ukraine's Declaration of State Sovereignty of July 16, 1990, which was signed before constitutional NATO provisions.
"The Ukrainian SSR solemnly declares its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles: to accept, to produce and to purchase no nuclear weapons," the text of the document says.
So far, Ukraine's Declaration of State Sovereignty is still valid, per legal observers, with modern Ukraine being the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR.
Meanwhile, it appears that Arakhamia's argument that changing the Constitution to make Ukraine a NATO member was too hard does not hold water. In fact, Ukraine's NATO membership provisions have repeatedly been included and excluded from the country's laws.
Thus, in 2002, then-Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma announced the nation's goal of "eventual NATO membership" which was reflected in the June 19, 2003, version of law on the foundations of Ukraine's national policy. In 2010, the government of President Viktor Yanukovich scrapped the plan, embracing the idea of military neutrality.
Following the Western-backed 2014 coup d'etat in Kiev, the nation's Verkhovna Rada, controlled by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, passed a law reinstating membership in NATO as Ukraine's strategic objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine's Constitution entered into force.
Furthermore in his interview, Arakhamia failed to explain to the Ukrainian press why the Ukrainian delegation – despite all the obstacles – signed preliminary peace agreements with Russia in Istanbul last year. In June 2023, Vladimir Putin showed the draft of the Istanbul agreement on the Ukraine settlement to an African delegation.
"Here it is! It exists!" Putin said, showing the document signed by Ukraine. "And it is called accordingly - the treaty on permanent neutrality and security guarantees for Ukraine. Exactly about guarantees. Eighteen articles," the Russian president underscored.
No matter how much the West is guilty for derailing the Russo-Ukrainian peace deal, the Zelensky regime is no less responsible for opening the door to bloodshed in Ukraine, per Bennett.
"Ukraine is destroyed," the expert said. "Its military is completely dissolved, and every Ukrainian citizen is going to turn against the Ukrainian political leadership for this unnecessary and destructive war, which should never have happened. Zelensky may very well be assassinated or overthrown by a coup within his own country and prosecuted, and executed as an international war criminal."
"Zelensky is now being abandoned by his staff, his generals, the Ukrainian people, and the international community as a puppet that has lost all use. If questioned, Boris Johnson will most likely pretend to not even remember Zelensky’s name. But those who know the truth will always remember Zelensky’s name and personality. He was the Devil’s spawn that destroyed Ukraine," the former US Army psychological warfare officer concluded.