By Ivo Kokić

At the end of March 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed on the conditions to end the war, that is, they reached a peace agreement and initialed its 18 points. The negotiations took place while the Russian army had encircled Kyiv. The head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul was David Arakhamia, who is also the leader of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Ukrainian party (Servant of the People).

The Istanbul Agreement

That peace agreement was so favorable for Ukraine that Arakhamia literally boasted on Ukrainian television in April 2022 about how well Ukraine had done in those negotiations. What Ukraine agreed to was minimal: giving up its NATO bid and recognizing the results of the 2014 referendum in Crimea. The agreement also included other points, such as the disbandment of neo-Nazi battalions within the Ukrainian army. Considering that Zelensky is Jewish, such a step likely would not have been particularly difficult for him. But the above two issues were the most important.

Thus, the country would not join NATO, which it was not a member of anyway. Let us add that until 2019 Ukraine was constitutionally a neutral country. Let us also not forget that the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine from 1990 emphasizes its neutral status.

It is true that one may argue that Ukrainian negotiators could not, in the full sense of the word, conclude a binding agreement because they did not have the authority to constitutionally neutralize the country. Only the Ukrainian parliament, with a two-thirds majority, can do that. However, Arakhamia is a party colleague of Zelensky (whose party holds an absolute majority in parliament). It would not have been difficult to find a few additional MPs to vote for such a proposal coming from the president.

Let us not forget that such a situation (in the opposite sense) had already taken place in 2019 when a two-thirds majority in the Ukrainian parliament voted for President Petro Poroshenko’s proposal to abolish constitutional neutrality. Therefore, it is simply a legal mechanism that can be implemented without major problems.

If we follow the logic that this was not a true agreement but merely a draft, then even Zelensky himself could not formally conclude such an agreement because he is part of the executive branch, not the legislative. Only parliament (the legislative branch) can amend the Constitution. However, the legislative branch does not represent the state in negotiations; the executive does. That would mean that no signed agreement in history could be considered valid because those who sign them (e.g., presidents or prime ministers) cannot guarantee parliamentary ratification.

But negotiations are always conducted under the assumption that what a government agrees to will indeed be successfully ratified. I have never heard of negotiations in which two presidents would bring along two-thirds of their parliament to ask their opinion before agreeing to anything. Therefore, the executive branch (and its representatives, such as Arakhamia) concludes agreements, although that is not a guarantee that their country’s parliament will adopt them. Admittedly, Arakhamia is a member of parliament, but he did not go to the negotiations in that capacity; he went as a government envoy.

It is hard to imagine Arakhamia agreeing to anything without consulting Zelensky beforehand about whether such terms should be accepted. As described in the next chapter, the Ukrainian government indeed intended to accept the agreement. Their willingness to make peace was never the issue. The agreement failed for external reasons, which will be explained later.

After all, the Russian side was led by Sergey Lavrov (the foreign minister), who is not the commander of the Russian army and therefore cannot order its withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. Nevertheless, it is presumed that the president (commander-in-chief) and the foreign minister have coordinated positions. I have never heard anyone contest that what Lavrov states publicly is truly the position of the Russian government.

As for Crimea (which had never been part of Ukraine before 1954), Ukraine would merely have recognized a reality on the ground that had existed for eight years, ever since 96.77% of voters supported joining Russia in the referendum (with more than 80% turnout). Therefore, the negotiation concerned two issues (NATO and Crimea) on which Ukraine could concede something de jure (but not de facto). But this was not a real concession because one cannot give up something one does not control in practice.

Now let us examine what the Russian side agreed to. Under the agreement, the Russian army would withdraw from the entirety of Ukraine’s territory. Not a single millimeter of Ukrainian land would belong to Russia. This should not surprise anyone because Russia had never expressed such a territorial ambition.

In other words, Ukraine would fully regain control of its entire internationally recognized eastern border. This means that the Ukrainian army would re-establish control even over those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk it had not controlled since 2014. Russia once again trusted Ukraine to finally implement the Minsk I and II agreements (which it had violated for eight years) and indeed grant autonomy to Donbas. Ukraine was already obligated to do so under those agreements, and the Istanbul deal included that as well.

Once again, something that brainwashed Westerners find difficult to grasp must be emphasized. The terms of peace offered to Ukraine (while its capital was under siege) were such that the Russian government was willing to help Ukraine achieve goals (the return of Donetsk and Luhansk) that Ukraine had been unable to achieve on its own for eight years.

And so the Ukrainian negotiating team had agreed to a deal it could present to its own people as a victory (and Arakhamia did exactly that). The Russian army therefore withdrew from the entire north of Ukraine and thus unblocked Kyiv. There was no longer any need to fight.

Istanbul peace talks in 2022

Why Did the Agreed Peace Fail?

Regardless of whether we call the agreement a treaty or a draft, the fact is that negotiators had agreed on it and Russia began acting accordingly. Therefore, we must examine why it was not implemented.

On April 9, 2022, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suddenly arrived in Kyiv. He told Zelensky to abandon the reached agreement and continue the war, and that the West would continue sending weapons. Zelensky accepted this.

Some justified this decision by claiming that Ukraine should not accept an unfavorable peace deal. It is not clear what exactly was unfavorable for Ukraine, what alternative they proposed, or how they intended to achieve it. Already then it could be seen (and today it is completely obvious) that no future peace agreement would be as favorable for Ukraine as the one from Istanbul. This is understandable because we are dealing with a state that (even under pressure) broke the agreement and consciously prolonged the suffering of both its own and the Russian people. A return to the Istanbul agreement would have been a reward to Zelensky for breaking his promise.

Russia advocated honoring the Minsk I and II agreements and keeping the entire Donbas within Ukraine (with autonomy). But after the Ukrainian government (having initially accepted that plan) rejected it under Johnson’s pressure, the situation could no longer return to its previous state. In four Ukrainian regions, referendums were held (in September 2022) in which an overwhelming majority voted to join Russia. Regardless of the will of the people there, Russia would never have asked them where they wanted to live; the territory would simply have been returned to Ukraine. But this could not be done if Ukraine refused. It is important to emphasize that the territorial change regarding those four regions was not Russia’s goal but the consequence of the failed agreement.

Interestingly, Russia even respected (and still respects) Ukraine’s own administrative divisions of those regions. This means that there was not one referendum across all the territory under Russian control, but four separate referendums (on the same day) with four different questions (depending on the region) and slightly different results.

Ukraine’s Pravda wrote about Johnson’s adventure in Kyiv in May 2022. But even more important was David Arakhamia’s statement in November 2023 on Ukrainian television channel 1+1, where he confirmed the accuracy of those claims. He admitted that the Ukrainian government wanted to make peace with Russia under the given conditions, but Johnson prevented them from doing so. Let anyone who claims that Russia, and not the West, undermines Ukrainian sovereignty and denies the Ukrainian government the right to pursue the policy it wants (or at least wanted at that time) think carefully.

Immanuel Kant wrote in 1795 a very important treatise titled Toward Perpetual Peace. At its very beginning, he explicitly condemned precisely the kind of behavior described in this chapter. He wrote that the conclusion of a peace treaty must eliminate the possibility of future war and that no secret machinations may create conditions for a new conflict.

More than two centuries ago, Kant directly pointed to the very behavior Johnson and Zelensky displayed.

Kneeling Before Satan

In the desert, Satan tempted Jesus three times. The second temptation was that Jesus kneel before him, and in return the devil would give him the entire worldly kingdom. Jesus refused and set the example of correct behavior.

Zelensky stands in opposition to Jesus. In 2022, he knelt before Boris Johnson instead of saying, “Get away from me, Satan.”

In return, Zelensky received what every person receives who bows to the devil — temporary earthly pleasures. There is no doubt the devil fulfilled his part of the bargain. Zelensky knelt and received everything this world can offer: travels around the world, speeches in numerous parliaments, posing with his wife for Vogue (while his people die), and even the title of 2022 Person of the Year chosen by The New York Times.

But it seems Zelensky forgot to ask what the price would be. For when the devil eventually knocks on Zelensky’s door to collect his debt, I would not want to be in his place.

The price will be that they spend eternity together. That alone could be the cost for what Zelensky chose to do. That is not surprising since Zelensky has already chosen to live in unity with the devil in this world, so why should their pleasant companionship not continue afterward?

He has, after all, created great debts to the devil through his gambling. The word gambling is used because Trump himself used that expression at the end of February 2025 when Zelensky visited him at the White House. Trump told him he was gambling with millions of lives and with a Third World War.

How Boris Johnson blocked the peace – explained

Biblical Kings

No true Christian ruler would have bowed before Johnson; rather, he would have been ready to die if necessary to honor an agreement that would bring peace to his people. Jesus said: “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one” (Mt 5:37). He did not say: “First say yes, and then withdraw your word if someone advises you so.” One must stand firmly behind one’s word and promise.

Someone might rise to defend the Ukrainian president and say that Zelensky is Jewish and therefore not bound by the teachings of the entire Bible, but only the Old Testament. That is true. As Marta Havryshko, a Ukrainian historian from Lviv and an expert on the Holocaust, said, Ukrainians embraced Nazism and covered themselves with the Jew Zelensky. It is indeed somewhat strange that a country tied to Nazism has a Jew for its president. But that is not the topic of this article, so let us return to the religious question.

If, for Zelensky, what is written in the Talmud (the Old Testament) is truly sacred, then we should examine what is written there in order to evaluate Ukrainian policy. And it is not necessary to compare Zelensky to King Solomon, as that would set unrealistically high moral standards.

It is enough to contrast him with any other ruler, for example the sinful and flawed King David. Imagine King David accepting an agreement with another state and then someone from the other side of the continent running to him and whispering that he should abandon what he believes is right in order to satisfy the interests of some third country (which had no intention of sending its army to help him). Based on what is written about King David in the Old Testament, there is no chance he would have accepted such advice.

The kings of the Old Testament would have suffered a heart attack if someone had suggested to them what Zelensky inflicted upon his own people — endless war, simply because he could not stand up to someone advising him to break an already achieved peace agreement.