We have to be ready for even darker days: Johnson

In a nearly 1,300-word essay in the New York Times published yesterday, Boris Johnson appealed to his counterparts to do more to resist the normalisation of the Russian offensive.

“Have we done enough for Ukraine? The honest answer is no,” he wrote, as he set out a six-point plan which he thinks will tackle Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance.

Mr Johnson said “never in my life have I seen an international crisis where the dividing line between right and wrong has been so stark”, as he insisted world leaders “must not allow anyone in the Kremlin to get away with misrepresenting our intentions to find post-facto justification for their war of choice”.

Mr Putin has repeatedly tried to blame fears over the expansion of Nato as a reason for launching the attack on Ukraine.

But Mr Johnson said: “The truth is that Ukraine had no serious prospect of Nato membership in the near future.

“This is not a Nato conflict and it will not become one. No ally has sent combat troops to Ukraine.

“We were ready to respond to Russia’s stated security concerns through negotiation. I and many other Western leaders have spoken to President Putin to understand his perspective.

“It was now clear diplomacy never had a chance. But it is precisely because of our respect for Russia that we find the actions of the Putin regime so unconscionable.”

Mr Johnson called on leaders to mobilise an “international humanitarian coalition” for Ukraine and support the country “in its efforts to provide for its own self-defence”.

The economic pressure on the Kremlin should be ratcheted up, he said, and leaders must resist the “creeping normalisation” of what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

“We have failed to learn the lessons of Russian behaviour that have led to this point,” he wrote.

“No-one can say we were not warned: we saw what Russia did in Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and even on the streets of the British city of Salisbury. And I know from speaking to my counterparts on recent visits to Poland and Estonia just how acutely they feel the threat.”

Mr Johnson also said while diplomatic paths to resolving the war must be pursued, this could only be done with the full participation of the “legitimate government of Ukraine”.

He added that there also needs to be a rapid campaign to strengthen security and resilience across the Euro-Atlantic area.

“It is no longer enough to express warm platitudes about the rules-based international order,” he said.

Mr Johnson discussed his plans with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call yesterday afternoon, where he said “the British people stand fully behind the Ukrainian people”.

The Prime Minister’s intervention comes as a desperate humanitarian crisis emerges in Ukraine.

The hopes of a temporary ceasefire in two Ukrainian cities were dashed again yesterday, after a previous attempt on Saturday could not go ahead due to continued shelling.

A Ukrainian official says a second attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol has failed due to continued Russian shelling.

More than 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the past 10 days in the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, the United Nations has said.