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0 Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that the UK and its allies should deploy non-combat troops to Ukraine right now, to “flip a switch” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head.
Speaking exclusively to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg alongside the former head of the military, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Johnson said troops should be sent to peaceful regions in non-fighting roles.
He said: “If we can have a plan for boots on the ground after the war, after Putin has condescended to have a ceasefire, then why not do it now?”
The UK government is currently working with its allies to plan a “coalition of the willing” to provide forces to preserve peace and stability in Ukraine, but only if there is a deal to end the war.
Speaking just days before the fourth anniversary of the war, Johnson, who was prime minister at the time of the invasion, also said the conflict could have been prevented if Western allies had paid more attention to Putin’s increasing aggression and his annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Johnson and Sir Tony recounted the moment when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and the early days of the war, when the decision to support President Volodymyr Zelensky was made.
Despite extensive UK support, they agreed that Western allies had been too slow and cautious in providing support to Ukraine.
In the past four years, allies have often taken months to agree to sending the weapons that President Zelensky has requested.
Sir Tony described the allies’ approach as “incrementalism” and said Ukraine felt it was “too slow and it’s deeply frustrating – these tensions have existed all the way through”.
Johnson said that the caution had cost lives.
“We’ve always delayed needlessly,” he said.
“We’ve then ended up giving the Ukrainians what they have been asking for, and actually it’s always served to their advantage and to the disadvantage of Putin.
“I mean, the one person who suffers from escalation is Putin.”
He added: “If we can have boots on the ground after the war, after Putin has condescended to have a ceasefire, then why not do it now?
“Just to make this point that it is up to the Ukrainians, and these people wouldn’t be there in a war-fighting capacity, right?”
Asked if he meant that UK and other European allies’ forces should go to safe parts of Ukraine now to “flip a switch”, he said: “Yes, I think, you know, if we are willing to do it in the context of a ceasefire, which of course puts all the initiative, all the power in Putin’s hands, why not do it now?
“There is no logical reason that I can see why we shouldn’t send peaceful ground forces there to show our support, our constitutional support for a free, independent Ukraine.
“That is a political thing. It’s about whether Ukraine is a free country or not. If it’s a vassal state of Russia, which is what Putin wants, then obviously it’s up to Putin to decide who comes to his country. If it’s not, then it’s up to the Ukrainians.”
Putin would most likely view the presence of international troops, on a peacekeeping mission or not, as a major provocation.
In September last year, after the announcement of the proposed “reassurance force”, Putin said any troops deployed to Ukraine would be “legitimate targets”.
Johnson said that the failure to confront Putin over the annexation of Crimea in 2014, when David Cameron was the UK prime minister, was “tragic”.
And when asked if the UK and Western allies had enabled Putin’s invasion by not taking his aggression seriously enough, Johnson said: “I do think that. The failure to do anything in Crimea was tragic.
“I think Putin was emboldened by a Western failure in Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons.
“I think Putin was further emboldened in February 2022 by what he’d seen in Afghanistan, and a sort of general sense that the West was on the back foot.
“He’d seen those appalling pictures of Americans being forced to flee Afghanistan and the UK pulling out as well, and that really did embolden him.”
Ukraine, adding: “If we’d had clarity and simplicity about Ukraine, rather than endless fudge and obscurity, we could have saved that, we could have prevented that invasion.”
Johnson, who was foreign secretary and prime minister during some of that period, admitted regret for not having taken more action.
“I do think we should have done more,” he said.
“The real problem is, with Ukraine, that Putin does not yet believe, or he has not yet been convinced, that the West regards it as an overwhelming strategic objective for Ukraine to be a free and independent European country.
“And until he sees the evidence that that is our determination, I think he’s just going to keep going.
“That’s the problem we’re in. It’s that fundamental lack of resolve.”
On defence spending, Sir Tony called on the government to “resolve” its promise to spend 3.5% of national income on defence by 2035, a promise made at the Nato summit last year.
He said: “We made, the prime minister made, an international commitment.
“The reason for that commitment was because there is a war in Europe. Russia is weak, but dangerous.
“We are safe as a country at the moment: we are a nuclear power, we’re a member of Nato, we have America as our principal ally.
“But we need to invest in each of those in order to assure our nation that we will continue to be safe in the 2030s. That’s why we had a defence review.
“That’s why Nato galvanised around an operational plan and the need for more spending, and that has to be resolved.
“We have made that commitment. Nato is challenging us. Where is our plan?”
Analysis
As the war in Ukraine approaches its grim anniversary, it was striking to hear the former prime minister say, with regret, that the bloody conflict could have been prevented in the first place, claiming it was failures of the West, including times when he was foreign secretary and then in Number 10, that emboldened Putin.
Essentially, Boris Johnson’s suggestion is that nearly a decade of foreign policy mistakes led to what’s happening now. That claim will be argued about for decades to come. But his eye-catching suggestion to send UK and allies’ troops to Ukraine goes further than any suggestion currently being made by the UK or its partners in what Sir Keir Starmer called a “coalition of the willing” in our studio almost a year ago.
The former head of the military, sitting alongside Johnson, was one of the architects of that plan, preparing forces to be ready to go and support Ukraine if, and only if, there is a peace deal.
Back in 2022, Europe pledged support to Ukraine, but said sending troops was beyond what they were prepared to do. Switching the focus of the “coalition of the willing” to sending troops now would be a hugely significant political move. But it’s not impossible that allies could discuss alternatives such as creating a safe zone in the west of the country or opening up Lviv airport, as a precursor to a ceasefire.
Johnson’s suggestion seems borne out of his own frustration, particularly given his ongoing links with Ukraine, that the allies’ response has been too halting – enough support so that Ukraine can keep fighting, not enough to bring an end to the war.
Both Johnson and Radakin were eager to emphasise that, in their view, President Zelensky has already made concessions, and that the only way to bring peace is to intensify the pressure on the Kremlin, economically, and militarily.
The former prime minister told me it was “deluded” to believe that the Russian leader wants peace, and he had told the White House as much. But as the loss of life on both sides continues, it is not clear how much further Western allies are willing to go, or how much Vladimir Putin is ready to listen.
