Putin Claims Boris Johnson Torpedoed Ukraine Peace in Tucker Interview

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson instructed Ukraine to tear up an advanced peace negotiation in the early days of the war, a claim Ukraine has already previously denied.

Broadcaster Tucker Carlson sat down with Russian dictator Putin this week in an interview broadcast Thursday night, the first Western journalist to do so since the renewed Ukraine war of 2022. As well as giving American and European listeners the benefit of a very Russian perspective on the last 1,400 years of Eastern European history and accusing the CIA of blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, President Putin also stated his understanding that Russia and Ukraine had been close to signing a peace deal early in the way, but that this ambition was scuppered by British interference.

Putin claimed Russia is ready to enter negotiations at any time — although somewhat tarnished his attempt to portray himself as a dove by also saying a precondition would have to be the United States suspending weapons deliveries and then waiting for it to “be over within a few weeks” before talks start — and never refused talks. Calling back to 2022, Putin cited talks with Zelensky ally Davyd Arakhamia, a senior member of the Ukrainian Parliament, who was involved in the Istanbul negotiations.

Had that agreement been inked, Putin said, “we could have stopped those hostilities with war a year and a half ago already”. Instead, he claimed, the British got involved and Ukraine was willing to “obey the demand or persuasion of Mr Johnson”. President Putin told Tucker Carlson: “Prime Minister Johnson came, [talked Ukraine] out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake.”

Putin said it was his desire to “go back to” that agreement, noting that while Boris Johnson was long gone, the war the Russian leader claimed the politician had encouraged still raged on.

The Tucker interview is not the first time these claims have been aired. Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had claimed last year that Johnson “banned” Ukraine from seeking peace and “demanded the continuation of hostilities against Russia”.

Yet, Ukraine’s Arakhamia has insisted Boris Johnson’s visit had nothing to do with the decision not to sign the document, because Ukraine was never going to sign it anyway. Arakhamia said, per a Times report earlier this year, that Russia’s primary concern was to extract promises of Finland-style neutrality from Ukraine and a guarantee that it would not join NATO.

These demands could never have been accepted at the conference, he said, because such a promise was beyond his authority as a negotiator — it would have had to have been a personal meeting between Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky — and in any case, Ukraine simply did not trust Russia to act in good faith and respect that neutrality had it been declared.

Boris Johnson himself said of the claims he’d scuppered a peace deal that: “This is nothing but total nonsense and Russian propaganda”. While Johnson said he did indeed believe any Ukrainian agreement with Russia would be “pretty sordid” and that he pledged British support for Kyiv “a thousand per cent” and told them to “just fight”, this was not an order and was meant in the context of how to combat the invasion.

While Putin repeatedly stressed he was open to talks and to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine, he also made clear this would not be without cost. Showing he is no dove himself, the Russian said in return for talks, the U.S. would have to stop arming Ukraine and then allow time to pass — presumably to give Russia a chance to consolidate its position on the battlefield. He told Carlson: “If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it. And then we can agree on some terms”.

Putin also made out there was no point attempting to fight on, as he claimed the progress of the war so far proved “it is difficult… if possible at all” to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. “It is never going to happen”, he claimed, stating his belief that Western leaders had now realised that too. If NATO wanted to come to a compromise “with dignity”, then Russia is “ready for this dialogue”, Putin said, in remarks that may be interpreted as goading by some in Washington.

While some of the claims made by President Putin are producing outrage, there was anger the interview had even taken place at all before it was published, with Tucker Carlson being branded a “traitor” for agreeing to talk with the Russian dictator. Top Eurocrat and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has spoken of adding Carlson to the EU’s sanctions list, but Hungary has said it would veto any such move.