Boris Johnson is a vocal supporter of Ukraine and thinks the UK should be doing more (Image: Getty)
Boris Johnson has urged the West to act now or suffer the grave consequences of reestablishing the Soviet “evil empire”.
Speaking at the Center for European Policy Analysis Forum in Washington a few days ago, he said: “I hope and pray that whoever wins the presidency will have the wisdom and the courage to give the military, financial, and political assistance it needs to get this war done and get it won.
“I cannot believe that any American president, Republican or otherwise, is going to allow a or anybody else to rebuild that empire and make America weak again.”
Johnson said that Western policy on is failing, and the West needs to step up its support.
“After two and a half years of bloodshed, I’m afraid that Western policy is not just starting to look inadequate, but actually cruel, because we are willing the end but failing to deliver the means.
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Vladimir Putin is a concern for the West (Image: Getty)
“We constantly hail the heroism of the Ukrainians, but we force them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.”
He reiterated that if things remained as they are now it would be a disaster for and the West.
“We should be doing what is necessary to help them to win, not just to survive, but to defeat Putin and to preserve as a free, independent and sovereign European country.
“If, as people increasingly suggest, this war were now to be frozen with a partitioned and still permanently capable of threatening, if not invading, what is left of that country, it would be a total disaster for all of us.”
Johnson warned that without Putin’s defeat, former Soviet Union countries would feel permanently threatened, thus emboldening China to take Taiwan by force.
The former prime minister helped lead the global response to ’s full-scale invasion of in February 2022 and has remained a vocal supporter of since he was voted out of office five months later.
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He went on to say that the Ukrainians must be given permission to make full use of the weapons they have, as the West has currently imposed limitations on ‘s use of long-range munitions.
“You try explaining to a mutilated Ukrainian soldier, why the Ukrainians can’t use [Anglo-French] Storm Shadow missiles to attack the Russian air bases from which they are launching the glide bombs that are doing such appalling damage to their positions. Try explaining to them why they can’t do what Putin is doing to their own country.”
While many believe that allowing the weapons to be used would escalate the conflict, this has been used to delay every increase in armaments for throughout the conflict, he said, and the escalation has not happened.
“Every single time, the argument about the risk of escalation from was proved to be absolute nonsense because the guy who actually fears escalation is Putin himself. We’ve got to stop using the so-called threat of escalation as an excuse for vacillation.”
Johnson also backed a proposal from the former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a $500bn lend-lease program for , similar to the one provided to the UK by the US in World War II.
He also stated that should be admitted into NATO now, instead of after the war, as had “chosen the West”. He explained that this would mean the area of still controlled by Kyiv could be given a NATO Article 5 security guarantee immediately without prejudicing Kyiv’s claim to its full 1991 territory.
Johnson said: “It is absolutely critical that we make this leap and do this now because, without that security guarantee, there can be no peace process. There could be no armistice, no negotiation, no talks with .
“The Russians have got to get used to the idea that they no longer have a sphere of influence. They have no near abroad. There is no more Soviet empire,” Johnson said. “And there is only one country, in my view, that can make this happen, that can deliver on this agenda, and that is, of course, the United States of America.”