Veteran diplomat Jean-Daniel Ruch has claimed the US and the UK derailed the Istanbul talks in April 2022, hoping to “weaken Russia”
Veteran Swiss diplomat Jean-Daniel Ruch has alleged that the US and UK “immorally” prevented Ukraine and Russia from sealing a truce again in April 2022 within the hope of dealing a blow to Moscow. The previous official, who on the time served as Swiss ambassador to Türkiye, was within the nation when peace talks had been going down.
In Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia preliminarily agreed to a draft truce beneath which Kiev would have renounced its NATO membership aspirations, declared neutrality, and restricted the scale of its armed forces in change for worldwide safety ensures. Nonetheless, Ukrainian negotiators abruptly pulled out, with Moscow later claiming that then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged the Ukrainian management to not signal any accord and to “simply proceed preventing.”
Whereas David Arakhamia, the Zelensky-allied MP who led the Ukrainian delegation, confirmed this in November 2023, Johnson nonetheless insists that the allegation is an “absolute steaming, stinking lie.”
In an interview with the French-speaking Anti These media outlet on Sunday, Ruch recounted how the “West pulled the plug on the negotiations which had been on target to provide a ceasefire.” In response to the diplomat, it was clear already in April 2022 that “if the battle continued… the lifeless could be counted not less than in tens of hundreds, extra in all probability in a whole lot of hundreds.”
However, the “Individuals and their British allies” intervened within the Istanbul peace talks and scuttled a ceasefire that “was inside attain,” insisting on weakening Russia additional as an alternative, Ruch claimed. The previous ambassador described the transfer as “deeply immoral,” suggesting that Kiev is now unlikely to be provided phrases as favorable as those proposed in 2022 in Türkiye.
Talking on Johnson’s function in these occasions, the veteran diplomat alleged that the previous British chief “was in [Istanbul] on responsibility for the Individuals” as he “doesn’t make this sort of selections all by himself.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed readiness to interact in dialogue with Kiev primarily based on the draft settlement ready in Istanbul within the spring of 2022, plus recognition of the “new territorial realities” which have taken form since.
In response to the Russian chief, “the doc didn’t come into pressure solely as a result of the Ukrainians had been ordered not to do that. The elites within the US and a few European international locations felt the will to hunt Russia’s strategic defeat.”
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