Vladimir Putin outrageously claimed last night that he was read to sign a deal to end the war with Ukraine 18 months ago but Boris Johnson scuppered the deal.
The Russian President sensationally claimed the former Prime Minister ‘dissuaded’ the leader of Ukraine’s leading party from signing the document and said it ‘was better to fight Russia’.
Mr Putin claimed that negotiations had been taking place in Istanbul and that Ukraine signed the deal but backed out under pressure from Mr Johnson who said it was ‘better to fight Russia’.
The despot made the jaw-dropping accusations during the much anticipated two-hour long sit-down interview with former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson.
He claimed that Davyd Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s ruing party, put his ‘preliminary signature’ on the deal after direct negotiations with Russian in Istanbul.
Mr Putin was allowed to drone on unchallenged for long chunks of time as he gave a rambling history lesson about Russia dating back to the year 800.
Vladimir Putin outrageously claimed last night that he was read to sign a deal to end the war with Ukraine 18 months ago but Boris Johnson scuppered the deal
![The despot made the jaw-dropping accusations during the much anticipated two-hour long sit-down interview with former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/02/08/23/81042755-13063493-image-a-2_1707435498921.jpg)
The despot made the jaw-dropping accusations during the much anticipated two-hour long sit-down interview with former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson
![The Russian President sensationally claimed the former Prime Minister 'dissuaded' the leader of Ukraine's leading party from signing the document and said it 'was better to fight Russia'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/02/08/23/81043205-13063493-image-a-19_1707436094177.jpg)
The Russian President sensationally claimed the former Prime Minister ‘dissuaded’ the leader of Ukraine’s leading party from signing the document and said it ‘was better to fight Russia’
Mr Putin said: ‘But then he (Arakhamia) publicly stated to the whole world, we were ready to sign this document but Mr. Johnson, then the Prime Minister, came and dissuaded us from doing this, saying it was better to fight Russia.
‘They would give everything needed for us to return what was lost during the clashes with Russia. And we agreed with this proposal’.
Mr Putin went on: ‘And the fact that they obey the demand or persuasion of Mr Johnson, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, seems ridiculous.
‘And it’s very sad to me because, as Mr Arakhamia put it, we could have stopped those hostilities with war a year and a half ago already. But the British persuaded us and we refused this. Where is Mr Johnson now? And the war continues.’
He accused the US of telling Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to refuse to negotiate any deal and said he wanted to agree a settlement.
‘And we made it,’ he said.
‘We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. Eighteen months ago.
‘However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that.’
The Kremlin has previously suggested Mr Johnson’s trip to Kyiv in April 2022 as an intervention to derail any peace deal and would have seen Russia withdrawing its troops.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, alleged late last year that Mr Johnson ‘banned’ Kyiv from signing a peace agreement.