Britain and Russia are enemies in Ukraine – but both want to disrupt Europe

Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin at the International Libya conference in Berlin, Germany, January 2020. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin/EPA

The British government has taken the first steps to unravelling its agreement with the EU on Northern Ireland – the so-called Northern Ireland protocol. Many Europeans are baffled by this. How can the government – which not only signed this legal agreement but negotiated it “word by word, comma by comma”, to quote the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier – just tear up a binding international treaty that only came into force last year?

But surprised, they are not. Not really. Because in its relationship with the EU, the UK is increasingly starting to behave like Russia – by unilaterally creating facts on the ground.