Except we all know that is simply not true. We now know from statements and admissions from Naftali Bennet, as well as the German and French negotiators in Istanbul, that the Russians voluntarily pulled back from Kiev because Bennett told Putin that Zelensky could not sign the Istanbul peace agreement "with a gun to his head".

So on April 3 Russia pulled back their troops from Kiev as a gesture of good faith.

Then, once the withdrawal was complete on April 6, Boris Johnson convinced Zelensky to tear up the deal and keep fighting instead.

Poor Putin must have felt like a real idiot then, being so naive as he was. You'd think after his experience with Minsk, he would not have trusted either Ukraine or their Western backers.

And again, when we talk about objectives, it was obviously not Russia's objective to conquer Ukraine. The deal they negotiated in Istanbul would have kept the Donbas as part of Ukraine, and would have had set special conditions for future negotiations on Crimea.

When Putin crossed the border with only 190,000 troops, he obviously knew that he could not even conquer Kiev with that force, let alone any substantial part of greater Ukraine.

No - Putin's objective was to get Ukraine and the West to negotiate, and to implement the Minsk-style deal that they had refused to implement before.

And he would have succeeded, has the US not sent their muppet poodle Johnson to tell Zelensky a bunch of bullshit,

And so now it's Zelensky's turn to feel like an idiot. He trusted the US and UK and the EU when they said they would give Ukraine "all it needs" for "as long as it takes".

As Henry Kissinger said: "To be America's enemy is dangerous, but to be America's friend is fatal".