What can the UK do to ensure that Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference in Poland with his counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki where he repeated his assertion that ‘Putin will fail’ and that the West ‘will succeed in protecting and preserving a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine’. The Russian president, he said, had underestimated the resolve of Ukraine and its allies.
He also warned that things were likely to get much worse, saying:
Johnson was confronted by a campaigner who accused him of being afraid
‘It is clear that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use barbaric and indiscriminate tactics against innocent civilians to bomb tower blocks, to send missiles into tower blocks, to kill children, as we’re seeing in increasing numbers.’
Johnson ruled out Britain getting directly involved militarily, including the touted idea of a no-fly zone, arguing that the consequences of direct combat with Russia would be very hard to control. It was wrong, he said, to think that the UK could fix this by military means.
Most powerfully, he was confronted at the press conference by a campaigner who spoke movingly of her own experiences and those of her family and colleagues, and accused him of being afraid and ignoring the fact that world war was ‘already starting’. She criticised what she saw as a mismatch between Johnson’s rhetoric on sanctions and the reality of people like Roman Abramovich not being punished, asking: ‘Where are all these mansions seized? I don’t see that.’
He did tell the press that sanctions could go further, but dodged a question on what it would mean for Vladimir Putin to fail, only accepting later that it may take time for this to happen. In the meantime, it is likely that the barbaric and indiscriminate tactics he described are going to get far worse.
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