Newly unsealed government documents reveal that Tony Blair received a chilling warning that Ukraine feared the West was nurturing too “rosy” a view of Vladimir Putin – two decades before Russia’s invasion.
At a time when the Labour prime minister argued that Mr Putin should be given a seat at the international “top table”, having been the first Western leader to visit him in Moscow, files now issued to the National Archives show that Ukrainian officials harboured eerily prescient concerns about the relationship.
