The U.K. may send combat troops to support Ukrainian allies under threat of Russian invasion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the British government on Tuesday.
“The British Army leads the NATO battle group in Estonia and if Russia invades Ukraine, we would look to contribute to any new NATO deployments to protect our allies in Europe,” Johnson told the House of Commons.
Johnson also said that the British military would “look to move to other parts of the NATO’s eastern frontier as well.”
“I have to tell him that I don’t believe that to be a likely prospect in the near term,” Johnson said in response to Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defense select committee, who called for the deployment of a deterrence force. “Ukraine is not a member of Nato. But what we can do, and what we are doing is sending troops to support Ukraine.”
“We will not reopen that divide by agreeing to overturn the European Security Order because Russia has placed a gun to Ukraine’s head, nor can we accept the doctrine implicit in Russian proposals that all states are sovereign, but some are more sovereign than others,” Johnson continued. “The draft treaty published by Russia in December would divide our continent once again between free nations and countries whose foreign and defense policies are explicitly constrained by the Kremlin in ways that Russia would never accept for herself.”
On Monday, Johnson warned Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would be “disastrous,” and that such military action could be “their new Chechnya.”
“The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see,” Johnson said. “We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.”
JUST IN: UK PM Boris Johnson warns Russia invading Ukraine would be "a painful, violent, and bloody business," and that "any invasion, any incursion of any kind of any dimension into Ukraine is not going to be a cost-free business… it could be their new Chechnya." pic.twitter.com/sTIYburdZY
— Forbes (@Forbes) January 24, 2022
“And so what we’re saying is that the U.K. is leading on creating the package of economic sanctions, working with our partners around the world, and I’ll be talking to them this afternoon, this evening, talking to colleagues and other capitals and in Washington,” Johnson continued, before re-focusing on the potential human consequences of an invasion.
“But we also need to get over the message that invading Ukraine from a Russian perspective is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business. And it’s very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya,” Johnson argued. “I’ve been to Ukraine several times, I know the people of that country a bit, and my judgment is that they will fight, and really that is not the way the world should be going. I hope that they understand that in the Kremlin, but it’s the job of the U.K. to make sure that our friends and partners around the world — particularly in Europe — also understand that, and we get ready a tough enough package of sanctions.”
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
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Source: Dailywire
