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A Russian official has renewed a misleading narrative about the collapse of early Russia-Ukraine peace talks, claiming former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scuttled a draft agreement after receiving a £1 million (€1.17 million) donation from a military drone manufacturer.
Kremlin envoy Kirill Dimitriev shared an X post on 21 July alleging that Johnson had “sabotaged” failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, in an apparent reference to the collapsed March 2022 Istanbul talks.
“Just a kind reminder that Boris Johnson sabotaged the ready-to-be-signed Russia-Ukraine peace deal after he received a £1 million donation from a military drone manufacturer”, he wrote on X.
Dimitriev shared his statement in response to an X post published by Johnson, accusing the UK’s new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, of opening the door to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine due to prior diplomatic decisions he made when leader of the centre-left Labour Party.
The so-called “drone manufacturer” Dimitriev is likely referring to is Christopher Harborne, a British businessman, political donor and investor, who holds shares in a company which reportedly supplies military equipment to Ukraine.
In November 2022, two months after Johnson left office, Harborne donated £1 million to the former prime minister.
Leaked files revealed that the investor went on to accompany Johnson on a visit to Ukraine, meeting with top officials in September 2023, as detailed by an article published by The Guardian on 10 October 2025.
The piece focused on transparency issues surrounding Harborne’s £1 million donation to Johnson’s office and the pair’s trip to Ukraine, but did not draw any clear-cut conclusions.
Yet, on 12 October 2025, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS published an article titled “Boris Johnson may have encouraged the prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine for money”, citing a report by The Guardian.
Another, by Russian state broadcaster Channel One on 13 October, carried the headline: “The Guardian claims Boris Johnson received money to disrupt talks between Moscow and Kyiv.”
The article went on to blame Johnson for the failure of the spring 2022 Istanbul peace negotiations, when in reality, The Guardian did not mention the failed talks or the word “bribe” — which feature in Channel One’s article.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also previously explicitly dismissed claims that Johnson sought to derail Istanbul talks by pressuring him to walk away, calling them “illogical”.
“There were several approaches with ultimatums, and I never gave my approval for it,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with The Guardian in February 2025. “It doesn’t fit with logic; what was he [Johnson] supposed to be talking us out of?”
Johnson himself has dismissed these claims as “Russian propaganda”. He made multiple trips to Ukraine both in office and since he stepped down from the role of prime minister.
The narrative that the West wants the war in Ukraine has been consistently pushed by the Kremlin to shift blame for its invasion.
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