All UK media outlets (even tabloids) have preferred to remain muted on recent claims by senior Ukrainian lawmaker David Arakhamia that former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the one who convinced Kiev in 2022 not to negotiate with Moscow and carry on fighting instead, according to Sputnik’s analysis.
Upon further examination, there appears to be an information blackout on this matter, as every single British outlet generates "no results" on this topic in its "search" section.
Screenshot of a Times page.
© Photo : The Times
Notably falling dead silent on the issue were such news outlets as the BBC, The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, along with the Daily Mail and the Independent.
Screenshot of a Telegraph page.
© Photo : The Telegraph
Screenshot of a BBC page.
© Photo : the BBC
This comes after the Russian Embassy in London asked Downing Street to give its thoughts on remarks by Arakhamia, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, who also was the chief negotiator at the botched Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022.
"Thus, evidently, with substantial UK input, an off-ramp for a negotiated solution was missed – with tragic consequences for Ukrainian statehood, economy and population. Would the UK government care to comment on Arakhamia’s assertions?" the embassy said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter).
Arakhamia made the bombshell claims in an interview with a Ukrainian TV channel last Friday, when he argued that it was then-British Prime Minister Johnson who talked Kiev out of signing an agreement with Moscow to end the Ukraine conflict in the spring of 2022.
"When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with [the Russians] at all. And [said] ‘let’s just continue fighting’," Arakhamia argued.
The lawmaker also claimed that Ukraine rejected the ceasefire deal due to its contradicting the country’s constitution's clause on Kiev’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
The remarks followed Russian President Vladimir Putin revealing that Moscow and Kiev had signed a draft agreement "on permanent neutrality and security guarantees for Ukraine" at the March 2022 talks hosted by Turkiye amid the Russian special military operation. As soon as Russia pulled back its troops from the vicinity of Kiev, as a gesture of good will, Ukraine reneged on the peace deal, Putin underscored.
“What’s more, a decree was signed by the Ukrainian head of state to ban such negotiations with Russia,” Putin added.
Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine in response to requests for aid from the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics, which were being subjected to intense shelling by Kiev regime forces at the time.