Ukraine’s former prime minister named the countries trying to derail the talks

A group of Western countries—including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France—is trying to derail talks on Ukraine, including through statements about deploying NATO troops on Ukrainian territory.

This was stated by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in an interview with TASS.

“The latest stages of the negotiation process show that a Western grouping of countries—Germany, the UK, and France—are inventing various ways, essentially, to discredit this negotiating process and sabotage it,” Azarov said.

According to him, the ideas of deploying troops from a “coalition of the willing” in Ukraine, as well as plans for Ukraine’s reconstruction—which Azarov claims no one will fund “with a single penny”—are aimed at that.

“Right now, the Kyiv regime is being actively financed only for military purposes,” the former prime minister said.

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson believes the hostile rhetoric of Western countries toward Russia is linked to the fact that Moscow is obstructing their plans for Ukraine. According to him, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is acting in the interests of a group of European elites, primarily economic ones. Earlier, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for sending non-combat troops to Ukraine.