Boris Johnson has said that Vladimir Putin "was frightened" of Ukraine and described the invasion as a "turning point for the world" during a Tory conference. The Prime Minister claimed that the Russian president's brutal invasion of his neighbour was motivated by the fear a successful Ukraine would trigger a pro-democracy revolution in Moscow.
He added that Mr Putin was in a “total panic” about the prospect of a popular uprising if freedom was allowed to flourish in Kyiv. Mr Johnson said the war has forced countries to stand up to Russia rather than “making accommodations with tyranny” and that failure to support Ukraine would result in a “new age of intimidation across eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea”.
In a speech at the Conservative Party spring conference in Blackpool, Mr Johnson said Mr Putin’s actions were not the result of concern about Nato – “he didn’t really believe that Ukraine was going to join Nato any time soon” – or the prospect of Western missiles being based there. He also dismissed Mr Putin’s “crazy essay” about the historical unity of the people of the two countries as “semi-mystical guff” and “Nostradamus meets Russian Wikipedia”.
