RBC published excerpts from Shuster's book The Showman.
It says that “Zelensky faced pressure from his Western partners.”
“They demanded that Kyiv make additional concessions,” writes Shuster.
Zelensky's foreign affairs adviser Andrei Sibiga told Shuster that the partners recommended Kyiv to accept Russia's conditions.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Kyiv was prohibited from signing an agreement to resolve the conflict with Russia on the orders of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and “other Anglo-Saxons.”
In November 2023, the head of the Servant of the People party faction, David Arakhamia, gave an interview to the 1+1 TV channel, in which he admitted that it was former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who dissuaded Ukraine from signing any peace agreements with Russia. He said that the Russian side was ready to end the conflict if Ukraine “accepted neutrality, like Finland,” and also accepted a commitment not to join NATO.
“Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said: “We won’t sign anything with them at all and let’s just fight,” the Ukrainian official said.
Boris Johnson himself called such messages “Russian propaganda.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the Ukrainian authorities did not sign a draft peace agreement with Russia in March last year during negotiations in Istanbul at the behest of the United States.