Many questions to people who negotiated - political scientist Mahda on Istanbul Summit, "peace deal" with Russia 

He spoke about this on the Espreso TV channel.

"These papers are nothing more than papers. They have never been submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament and ratified. That is, questions can be asked to the people who were negotiating at the time. In particular, to the Minister of Defence of Ukraine Rustem Umerov, his current advisor Kyrylo Tymoshenko. You can ask the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, the advisor to the head of the Presidential Office, Mykhailo Podoliak, and the former Minister of Defence, Oleksiy Reznikov. Former Deputy Foreign Minister Oleksandr Chaly can also be asked questions. But we have no reason to say that this is the official and absolute position of the Ukrainian state, because it has not been ratified and has not been signed by anyone on behalf of Ukraine. The Russian Federation is promoting this paper purely for propaganda purposes, to say that if you, Ukrainians, had signed it then, everything would have been fine. But this is a lie. If Ukraine had agreed to it then, then Bucha would have been scaled up to the whole country. I have no doubt about that," Mahda said.

The full-scale invasion came as a surprise to many Ukrainians, the political scientist recalled.

"In April 2022, the Ukrainian authorities were in a state of shock, as were millions of our citizens, this is absolutely obvious. Despite all the assurances, statements and warnings from our Western partners, they were not listened to for a long time. Therefore, 24 February 2022 came as a surprise to some extent. This is an axiom for me. The desire to stop the war appeared after the first horrors, after it became clear that, despite the statements of some of our wise spokesmen, the Russians were not only hitting military targets but also destroying the Ukrainian state and infrastructure," he added.

• On April 26, German journalists published details of a peace agreement that Ukraine and Russia could sign in April 2022.