LONDON, June 26. /TASS/. Boris Johnson, who served as British prime minister in 2019-22 and talked Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky out of signing a peace agreement with Russia in the spring of 2022, is to blame for Ukrainian battle casualties, Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing populist party Reform UK, said.

When asked what a peace deal on Ukraine could look like, he said: "What it looks like is not rejecting a peace deal, which Johnson very clearly did, for his own reasons. How many people have died as a result of that, I don’t know." "It’s as if he wants both sides to fight to the death. Given we’ve got up to a million battle casualties, I find it extraordinary," Farage added, as cited by The Times.

The Reform UK leader did not rule out that Ukraine would have to give up some of its territories in order to put an end to fighting. "That’s his [Zelensky’s] choice. No one is even talking about peace. All we are talking about is ‘Ukraine is going to win.’ Really? I’m pretty skeptical about that," he noted. According to Farage, if Zelensky insists on reclaiming all the areas the Kiev authorities believe belong to Ukraine, "there may be no young men left in Ukraine."

David Arakhamia, head of the pro-presidential Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament), claimed in November 2023 that it was ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who prohibited Kiev from signing peace agreements with Russia following talks in Istanbul in March 2022 and demanded that Ukraine continue military activities against Russia.