TORY Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed yesterday that Russia is on the brink of ‘invading’ Ukraine and threatened that what would ensue would be ‘the biggest war in Europe since 1945 just in terms of sheer scale’.
Johnson claimed to BBC reporter Sophie Raworth: ‘All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun,’ adding that ‘people need to understand the sheer cost in human life that could entail’.
Johnson warned that the conflict would be ‘bloody and protracted’, claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin is possibly ‘thinking illogically about this’ and does not ‘see the disaster ahead’.
Raworth said to Johnson: ‘Ukraine has got no military support. America has made it very clear that if the Russians invade they’re not going to be in there fighting with them.’
Johnson responded: ‘What the West has also said is that we will support to the extent that we can. We have already given them training through Operation Orbital as you know. We’ve trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops. We’ve given them 2,000 anti-tank weapons, plus some other stuff …’
He continued: ‘It is true to say that in 2008 the West, NATO, could have made a decision to put Ukraine firmly on the path to NATO membership. That didn’t happen and the Article 5 security guarantee isn’t there. So we have to use the tools that we have. Those tools are economic sanctions against Russia and we will impose the toughest economic sanctions.’
Johnson went on to speak warmly in favour of war between Ukraine and Russia, saying: ‘I believe they will fight and it will be a bloody and a protracted conflict … What we are trying to do is offer every possible kind of support for Ukraine.
‘In Putin’s imagination, a lot of his anxieties is out about NATO, about the encroachment of NATO since the end of the Cold War and I think what he wants to see is NATO pushed back.
‘I think Putin wants NATO to be pushed back. But what we’re doing is the exact opposite. There are more UK forces in Estonia, more into Poland, more into Romania.’
Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting, expressed full support to the Tories and for imperialist aggression against Russia, saying: ‘We stand full square united within the UK and squarely alongside our NATO allies. That’s exactly where we should be.’
He went on to say: ‘When Boris Johnson imposes tough sanctions against Vladimir Putin he knows that he’ll have our support in implementing them.’
- The UK government has announced it is setting up a propaganda/censorship unit targetting Russia for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
The Russia-Ukraine Government Information Cell (GIC) will expose and fight ‘false information,’ Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told The Mail on Sunday newspaper yesterday.
‘At the end of the Cold War we disbanded our information unit, but the Russians didn’t disband theirs, so we faced years and years of Russian disinformation.’
Home Secretary Priti Patel made a similar point in an op-ed in The Telegraph, writing that unit will ‘tackle Russian information aggression targeted at the UK.’