Aleksey Arestovich believes the president's cultivated ?hero? persona has locked Kiev into conflict

Now is the time to start thinking about negotiating peace with Russia, with the situation looking more hopeless on the front line, a former adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said.

Aleksey Arestovich told Inews that the Zelensky has become a hostage to his own propaganda due to his propensity to "play the hero in parliaments around the world." The former presidential adviser and spokesman, who has fallen out of favor with Kiev, said Zelensky currently "thinks not about the national interest but about his own position."

Arestovich recently announced that he would stand against Zelensky for the presidency, and would campaign on a platform of peace.

With the cost of the war mounting and Kiev's death toll rising to around 300,000, the former adviser said it was past time to start discussing terms for peace.

"For Russia, it's for Ukraine not to join NATO, and for us it is to stop this war. These are great conditions to start a real discussion - not only between Ukraine and Russia - about a new system of collective security in Europe," he said.

Arestovich said that Ukraine was in a far stronger position to negotiate in spring 2022, after Russia's troops were closer to Kiev, and suggested that then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have undermined the peace talks.

At that time, Russia was seeking protection for the Russian language, the reduction of Kiev's army, and a turn away from NATO, Arestovich revealed to the news outlet, claiming to have detailed knowledge of the negotiations that took place in Istanbul. After Johnson's visit to Kiev in April, he said talks were swiftly terminated.

David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian MP who headed Kiev's delegation in the spring 2022 negotiations with Russia, said back in November that Moscow had been ready to end the war if Ukraine promised not to join NATO.

"When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we wouldn't sign anything with them at all, and that we should just fight," he told Ukrainian media.

A spokesperson for Johnson has dismissed this, saying the decision to fight was made because of the "iron resolve of President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine," wrote Inews.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has reaffirmed that Russia would prefer to reach its goals in Ukraine via "political and diplomatic means." Commenting on Tuesday, he said "we are still ready for negotiations."

President Zelensky signed a formal decree early in October stating that any negotiations with Russia under President Vladimir Putin are "impossible."

(RT.com)