Boris Johnson has said that “a vast invasion is under way, by land, by sea and by air” in Ukraine, as he promised to impose “massive” sanctions that would “hobble” the Russian economy.
Speaking as world leaders scrambled to respond to the attacks that began in the early hours of Thursday morning, the UK prime minister said Russia had “attacked a friendly country without any provocation and without any credible excuse”.
He said Russia must not be allowed to succeed. “Diplomatically, politically, economically, and eventually militarily, this hideous and barbaric adventure of Vladimir Putin must end in failure,” he said.
Johnson said Ukraine had for decades been a free country, able to determine its own destiny. “We and the world cannot allow that freedom just to be snuffed out. We cannot and will not just look away.
“This act of wanton and reckless aggression is an attack not just on Ukraine. It is an attack on democracy and freedom in eastern Europe and around the world,” he said.
In a deliberate reference to Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister remembered for underestimating Hitler’s murderous intentions in the 1930s, Johnson said Ukraine was “not in the infamous phrase some faraway country of which we know little”.
Chamberlain used those words when Germany was allowed to annex the Sudetenland – then part of Czechoslovakia – in 1938, in exchange for a promise of peace. With video » | Heather Stewart, Political editor | Thursday, February 24, 2022
