Western politicians in the era of Joe Biden didn’t have “the balls” to fully back Ukraine, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday.
Speaking to POLITICO at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Johnson said U.S. President Donald Trump deserved credit for sending lethal assistance to Ukraine during his first term in 2018 — even as he expressed fears about the direction of current peace talks with Russia.
“With all the complaints we may have now about [Trump’s] position, I just observe two things: you know, first of all, under Joe [Biden] and from the previous two years, whatever you’d say about what the West was doing, we were just about stopping the Ukrainians from losing,” Johnson told POLITICO Berlin Playbook’s Gordon Repinski in an interview. “But we never had the balls to give them what they needed actually.”
“The second thing I’ve always noted was that actually it was Trump back in 2018 who gave them the Javelin … missiles, and Trump broke the taboo on giving Ukrainians lethal weapons, which the Democrats have not done,” he added.
Trump in his second term has upended European military policy by slashing aid to Ukraine and casting doubt on whether the United States would honor its NATO commitments to defend a fellow member were it attacked by Russia.
He has signed a minerals deal aimed at seeing Kyiv pay back aid given to by the U.S. under Biden, embarrassed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House and shown a growing closeness with Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
Johnson, when asked about claiming in the past that Trump would be “strong and decisive” on Ukraine, said: “Leaders like President Trump listen to lots of different voices before making up their mind,” adding: “I’m anxious, but I don’t think that Donald Trump’s instinct will be to let Ukraine be crushed. And I don’t think that he has the political space to allow it to happen.”
Johnson — who has lobbied hard for U.S. Republicans to stay the course in supporting Ukraine and insisted European fears about Donald Trump’s Ukraine strategy are overblown — said: “I have always thought that if we can get peace through strength in Ukraine, then Trump — for all the criticisms people make of him — Trump can actually deliver.”
‘No real pressure’ on Russia
Johnson was in office in the U.K. during Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has remained a staunch ally of Kyiv. He said Tuesday that talks between the two sides were now at a “very crucial moment,” with Ukraine “pushed into a corner” and asked to accept concessions on land and not taking up NATO membership that amount to an “awful lot.”
“The Russians have been placed under no real pressure so far, and everybody can see that and I think what’s happening now in Washington, I hope, is that people are finally recognizing that Putin doesn’t want it [peace],” Johnson said.
The former British PM said he feared a “very dangerous” conclusion to the war “on Putin’s terms,” whereby the Russian president delivers a ceasefire and wins an end to U.S. arming of Ukraine and a promise the country will not join NATO.
“[What] I worry about is that people will say: We’ll stop there. We’ll stop the killing and the president will be able to tell himself that is a success.
“But of course it will be an utter, utter disaster, because Putin would remain in a position to destabilize Ukraine. And, of course, to launch another invasion. I’m actually very anxious about it.”
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