Claims and Rebuttals
What happened: On February 20, a version appeared in a number of Russian Telegram channels claiming that The Wall Street Journal journalist Boyan Panchevskyi quoted President Volodymyr Zelensky as saying that negotiations had failed and that they should prepare to fight for another three years. The President's Office categorically denied this information.
"What causes me the most skepticism is the private meeting [Zelensky] had with his closest advisers. There he stated that the negotiations had failed and now they have to develop a plan to wage war for another three years. Everyone was shocked."
— Boyan Panchevskyi, journalist for The Wall Street Journal (as quoted on Telegram)
"This is just a stupid fake."
— Dmytro Lytvyn, adviser to the president on communications
Lytvyn added that there was neither such a conversation with advisers nor an instruction about "another three years of war." He also recalled that Ukraine is expecting a renewed meeting of negotiating delegations in February, but that this depends not only on Kyiv.
Sources and context
The claim spread through reposts on Telegram channels; a direct recording of the conversation has not been published. Two circumstances are worth noting: first, Panchevskyi himself is known for critical publications about Ukraine and has been included in the database of the non-governmental resource "Myrotvorets" for, it is alleged, manipulations and pro-Russian narratives. Second, similar stories often arise during periods of intensive negotiations and tend to amplify uncertainty among partners and the public.
Reminder: after the third round of talks on February 17–18 the president noted that there had been progress on the military plan in Geneva, but there is not yet agreement on political issues. Journalists (including Axios, Barak Ravid) drew attention to certain "dead ends" in the discussions, while other participants in the negotiating process recorded advances on a number of technical issues.
Why this matters
Information of the "three-year plan" type not only misinforms the public — it serves to undermine trust between negotiation participants and can affect the stance of external partners. If real deadlines are hidden behind the noise, partners may make decisions based on a false impression of Ukrainian intentions or the morale of the leadership.
The effect is this: increased uncertainty reduces the willingness to take risky political steps, drags out the process, and gives the enemy a tactical advantage in the information war.
Conclusion
For now it is important to separate confirmed facts from remarks and gossip in messaging apps. The President's Office has denied the cited quote, and Kyiv's official position is to continue negotiations where possible. As practice shows, information injections often appear at the most critical moments of negotiations — so the task of the Ukrainian side and its partners today is not only to conduct dialogue at the table, but also to reduce the impact of information noise on the negotiations themselves.
Whether diplomatic progress can be turned into concrete agreements depends not on a single quote online, but on the willingness of the parties to keep working despite attempts to discredit the process.
