A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a ‘political, humanitarian and military disaster’, Boris Johnson has warned.
The prime minister headed to Kyiv on Tuesday to discuss the threat of more than 100,000 Russian troops gathering at the Ukrainian border.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, he highlighted the devastating aftermath of when Russia sent 30,000 troops into Crimea in 2014.
‘We have to face a grim reality, which is that as we stand here, Volodymyr, today, more than 100,000 Russian troops are gathering on your border in perhaps the biggest demonstration of hostility towards the Ukraine in our lifetimes’, the Tory leader said.
‘And the potential deployment dwarfs the 30,000 troops that Russia sent to invade Crimea in 2014.
‘Since that time of course, as everybody knows, 13,000 Ukrainians have been killed and Ukraine has been plunged into nearly a decade of war.
‘It goes without saying that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a political disaster, a humanitarian disaster. In my view, it would also be, for Russia, for the world, a military disaster as well.’
He was stern in his warnings to Russia, telling president Vladimir Putin he needs to ‘step back’.
Mr Johnson promised that he and the UK’s American allies had already prepared a package of sanctions that would target Russia’s commercial interests.
The measures will be ‘enacted the moment the first Russian toe cap crosses further into Ukrainian territory’, he warned.
‘I think it’s vital that in Moscow they understand that there will be automaticity in the way that we apply these sanctions’, he said.
‘So that the minute there is a further incursion into sovereign Ukrainian territory, then those sanctions will apply.’
The UK has helped to train more than 22,000 military personnel and provided £2.2 million worth of non-lethal weaponry.
But Mr Johnson used the press conference as an opportunity to appeal to Russia to solve this conflict diplomatically.
He said: ‘I think perhaps the single most useful thing we can all do is get over to the Russian public – to citizens in Russia thinking about this possibility – the reality that the Ukrainian army will fight and there are 200,000 men and women in Ukraine.
‘They will put up a very, very fierce and bloody resistance and I think that parents, mothers in Russia, should reflect on that fact.
‘And I hope very much that President Putin steps back from the path of conflict and that we engage in dialogue and that is what the UK is intent on producing and that’s why I’m here today.’
The Kremlin wants legally-binding reassurances that Ukraine will not be allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Russia has also asked for any NATO-deployed weapons and forces to be halted and rolled back in Eastern Europe.
But NATO has rejected Russia’s demands, which the Kremlin says would address Russia’s concerns over the alliance’s expansion.
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