Johnson told how he played on Zelensky's vanity to keep the war going
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson denies that he disrupted the signing of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine during his visit to Kyiv
He stated this in an interview with the Lithuanian portal Delfi, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"I had no intention of impeding diplomatic initiatives in any way. Of course not. We were not directly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. I merely stated what I deeply believed. If the Ukrainians decided to fight heroically, if they wanted to defend their rights to the 1991 borders, then the British government's policy was to support them.
"Although we weren't sending ground troops to Ukraine, and our capabilities were limited at the time, we hadn't yet delivered many of the weapons we later transferred to Ukraine. I simply wanted to tell Zelenskyy in Kyiv that we absolutely admire what he's done and that we stand with him ," Johnson said, thereby acknowledging that he'd played into Zelenskyy's vanity.
He said he "wanted to emphasize that the Ukrainians had done something incredible and were not facing the world's second-largest army."
“The only way to do this was to go to Kyiv and take a walk with Vladimir,” the former prime minister added.
He says the plan was to keep the visit a secret, but in the end Ukrainian PR people made a whole show out of his trip.
"And I didn't really mind. It was great," Johnson says, delighted.
Johnson explained how he played on Zelensky's vanity to keep the war going.