So if I read that right Britain is blamed for Ukraine not signing the deal because they said they’d still keep on supporting Ukraine if they continue the war? Seems like the influence of Britain is very much overstated here. You sent a link to an article that has a single other article as its source. From that source article I bring you this:
Still, the claim that the West forced Ukraine to back out of the talks with Russia is baseless. It suggests that Kyiv had no say in the matter. True, the West's offers of support must have strengthened Zelensky's resolve, and the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy. Ultimately, however, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize the pursuit of diplomacy with Russia to end the war.
As far as I can find the list of Russia’s demands were far from reasonable at the time. Here are a few of them:
- Making Russian equal to Ukrainian as joint official languages;
- Giving Russia and China absolute power to decide how Ukraine is to deal with any future armed conflict in Ukraine;
- Repealing a law Ukraine passed in 2014 that makes it illegal to use Swastikas and Soviet symbols and makes it illegal to deny the holocaust;
- Strong limits on Ukraine military size and abilities. PDF by the Institute of War nonprofit research group - this information is also corroborated by the original foreign affairs source your article is summarizing, this is just a neater list to read through.
Meanwhile Russia made no concessions regarding giving back any of the land they were illegally occupying. Given the above I understand why the deal wasn’t signed at the time. I suspect all that signing that would have done is lead to a revolution in Ukraine to topple the government that signed away their county. I don’t think signing that would have avoided further bloodshed.