Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are futile, and that the only way the war in Ukraine can end is by Russian President Vladimir Putin being defeated.
“Russian forces must be pushed back to the de facto boundary of Feb. 24,” Johnson wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 9.
“There is no way Volodymyr Zelensky or the Ukrainian people could conceivably accept another outcome – not after the savagery they have endured. There is no land-for-peace deal to be done, even if Mr. Putin were offering it and even if he were to be trusted, which he is not.”
The British Conservative politician, who became widely celebrated in Ukraine for his staunch support from the outset of Russia’s illegal invasion, urged western nations to “step up aid to Ukraine.”
“The world can’t continue to watch as the Ukrainians are terrorized with missiles and drones,” he continued. “It is a moral abomination that millions are left night after night without heating or light or water – to say nothing of the continuing and indiscriminate murder of civilians. And the longer Mr. Putin continues with his senseless attacks, the longer the global economic hemorrhage will continue as well.”
Complacency must be avoided
Johnson warned the west not to lose focus in its support for Ukraine, saying that there was a “serious danger of complacency about the consequences of delay,” and stressing that Europe’s subsequent energy crisis was not short-term.
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“For all who rely on supplies of Russian gas, this winter will be very tough,” he wrote. “But thanks to prodigious organizational efforts to restore gas supplies, we will get through it. The bigger problem is next winter – 2023-24 – when those stocks will have been run down and become harder to replenish.
“Newly commissioned liquid natural gas terminals won’t yet be online. Some European countries are rushing to build more offshore wind capacity, but that won’t be ready either; and we certainly won’t have any more civilian nuclear reactors.”
Johnson wrote that it was time to urgently look at what more the West can do to “help Ukrainians achieve their military objectives, or at least to kick the Russians out of all the territories invaded this year.”
Suggesting that Western governments and organizations share the burden, he continued by saying “first, let’s give the Ukrainians the help they need against aerial attacks,” adding that Kyiv needs unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to detect enemy drone and missile launch sites, along with antiaircraft missiles to take them down.
Johnson also suggested that planes could be supplied to help Ukraine shoot down the mainly Iranian-produced drones.
“The drones have the same engines as Vespa scooters,” he wrote, “so planes to shoot them down don’t have to be fast. As one Ukrainian put it to me, Spitfires would do. We don’t make spitfires in the U.K. anymore, but plenty of countries have planes that would do the job.”
Johnson dismissed concerns that supplying more weapons to Ukraine could lead to a further escalation of the war.
“We dare not risk ‘poking the Russian bear’. Surely to goodness, after almost a year of this hideous conflict, we can see what total nonsense this is.”
The former PM criticized “decades of Western lassitude and irresolution” about Ukraine’s status as having contributed to Putin’s invasion, but added that “the West has atoned for this failure with a stunning display of coherence and unity since February.”
“We must be stronger and bolder,” he added. “For the sake of the world, let’s help those brave Ukrainians finish the job, and the quicker the better.”
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