Advisor to the Russian president and head of the Russian delegation in the negotiations with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinsky, told the state English-language television channel Russia Today (RT) that Moscow had offered Kiev softer terms for a peace treaty in 2022 than at the last talks in Istanbul.
Medinsky said that Ukraine could have signed the peace treaty on February 28, 2022. "And its terms were softer than what we are offering today," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
The presidential aide said that after the Russian delegation presented the draft treaty, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "was silent for two weeks" and during this time he met with representatives of Great Britain and the United States.
"Then we were told: "Our foreign partners are against concluding the agreement". We have already agreed on it," claims Medinsky, quoted by TASS.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin said that it was the Western partners who dissuaded the Ukrainians from agreeing to the document proposed by Russia in 2022.
Boris Johnson, who was British Prime Minister at the time, later said that he was indeed against Russia's territorial concessions, but was ready to support any choice of Ukraine.