UK could send troops to Ukraine – ex-PM
The UK cannot let Ukraine suffer a defeat in its ongoing conflict with Russia, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told GB News in an interview published on Tuesday. London could go as far as sending in troops if Kiev “goes down,” he warned.
According to Johnson, Russia’s success in Ukraine would spark a security crisis for the US and its allies on a multitude of fronts. “It’ll be the Baltic states. It’ll be in Georgia. You’ll see the impact of a Ukrainian defeat in the Pacific theater. You’ll see it in the South China Sea,” the politician said, without specifying what exactly could happen in those regions.
He also described military and financial assistance to Kiev as a “sensible investment” and a “good” way to spend public funds, arguing that the UK would supposedly have to pay much more otherwise because “our collective security will be really degraded by a resurgent Russia threatening all sorts of parts of Europe.”
The former prime minister also pointed to the prospect of the US cutting aid to Kiev as a potential risk, claiming some people with “wrong” views on the issue were in president-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle.
“Donald Trump has lots of different voices in his ears and there’s a front of the Republican Party, quite a lot of them actually, who take the wrong line on Ukraine,” he said.
If aid to Ukraine is reduced and Kiev starts losing, London could be forced to deploy troops to the region, Johnson claimed. “We will then have to pay to send British troops to help defend Ukraine,” the politician stated.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it had no plans to attack NATO or any of its members. At the same time, Moscow has also warned on multiple occasions that by providing military aid to Kiev, the bloc increases the risk of a direct clash, specifying that it would treat the provision of long-range missiles for Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russian territory as a direct assault by the countries which had supplied the weapons.
Earlier, Putin ordered changes to the nation’s nuclear doctrine that listed attacks by a non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear power as a reason for a nuclear response on Russia’s part, among other things.
Last week, The Telegraph reported that the UK, together with France, could push for further escalation of the Ukraine conflict by attempting to convince Washington to allow Kiev strike targets deep inside Russia with Western weapons, including Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missiles.
Johnson himself was accused of being instrumental in disrupting the peace talks between Moscow and Kiev back in spring of 2022. Talks in Istanbul had produced a text that was agreed by Russian and Ukrainian negotiators at that time. The head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, MP David Arakhamia, later admitted that Kiev pulled out of that deal after Johnson urged it to “just fight” Russia, during a visit to the Ukrainian capital.
