“This is not a NATO conflict, and it will not become one,” Boris Johnson said.
QUICK FACTS:
- NATO does not harbor animosity towards the Russian people, nor does it question Russia’s status as a world power, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an op-ed published by The New York Times on Sunday, The Russian News Agency (TASS) reports.
- Johnson said in the piece for The Times that “Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression must fail and be seen to fail.”
- He also stressed that the Kremlin should not be allowed “to get away” with misrepresenting the intentions of the West “in order to find ex post facto justification for this war of choice.”
- However, Johnson also stopped short of putting himself or NATO at odds with Russia, saying, “We have no hostility toward the Russian people, and we have no desire to impugn a great nation and a world power.”
- “The truth is that Ukraine had no serious prospect of NATO membership in the near future,” Johnson added.
- “This is not a NATO conflict, and it will not become one. No ally has sent combat troops to Ukraine,” the UK prime minister went on to say.
JOHNSON’S “SIX STEPS”:
- “First, we must mobilize an international humanitarian coalition,” Johnson writes for The Times. “On Monday, I will meet the leaders of Canada and the Netherlands in London to talk about creating the widest possible coalition to expose the outrages that are taking place in Ukraine. On Tuesday, I will host the leaders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, now on the front line of a refugee crisis. The United Kingdom has 1,000 troops on standby for humanitarian operations, on top of 220 million pounds ($291 million) of aid. We must all work together to establish an immediate cease-fire and allow civilians safe passage, food and medical supplies.“
- “Second, we must do more to help Ukraine to defend itself. More and more nations are willing to provide defensive equipment. We must act quickly to coordinate our efforts to support the government of Ukraine.”
- “Third, we must maximize the economic pressure on Mr. Putin’s regime. We must go further on economic sanctions, expelling every Russian bank from SWIFT and giving our law enforcement agencies unprecedented powers to peel back the facade of dirty Russian money in London. We must go after the oligarchs. So far, the United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on more than 300 elites and entities, including Mr. Putin himself. But these measures will be insufficient unless Europe begins to wean itself off the Russian oil and gas that bankroll Mr. Putin’s war machine.”
- “Fourth, no matter how long it takes, we must prevent any creeping normalization of what Russia does in Ukraine. The lesson from Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and seizure of Crimea in 2014 is that accepting the results of Russian aggression merely encourages more aggression. We cannot allow the Kremlin to bite off chunks of an independent country and inflict immense human suffering and then creep back into the fold.”
- “Fifth, we should always be open to diplomacy and de-escalation, provided that the government of Ukraine has full agency in any potential settlement. There can be no new Yalta, decided over the heads of the people of Ukraine, by external powers.”
- “Sixth, we must act now to strengthen Euro-Atlantic security. This includes not only bolstering NATO’s eastern flank but also supporting non-NATO European countries that are potentially at risk of Russian aggression, such as Moldova, Georgia and the nations of the western Balkans. And those that participate or enable Russian aggression, such as Belarus, will be subject to maximum sanctions.”
BACKGROUND:
- Earlier, Johnson had proposed NATO allies support the international plan of action on Ukraine, TASS notes.
- That plan included mobilizing an international humanitarian coalition, providing defensive equipment to Kiev, and maximizing the economic pressure on Russia.
- It also included preventing “any creeping normalization” of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, seeking diplomatic paths towards de-escalation yet only if “the government of Ukraine has full agency in any potential settlement,” as well as bolstering Euro-Atlantic security.
- According to Johnson, the West and the entire international community should support these initiatives, according to TASS.
- However, Moscow does not consider its attack on Ukraine an act of aggression, instead calling it a “special military operation” seeking to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine, protect Donbass, and defend Russia’s own security amid NATO’s expansion eastward, RT News reports.
- Russia argues that it has exhausted all the diplomatic options prior to the military operation launch.
