Boris Johnson calls for European troops on Ukrainian soil, tells Russia to 'bog off'
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has no time for Russia's repeated objections to European troops being deployed on Ukrainian soil.
"If they don't want foreign troops on Ukrainian soil, I've got a brilliant idea — they bog off," he told the Kyiv Independent in Kyiv on Sept. 12. "There's only one country that's put foreign troops on Ukrainian soil, and that's Russia."
But it's not just the Kremlin that Johnson has lost patience with. Speaking on the sidelines of the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference in Kyiv, he also voiced his frustrations with Ukraine's European allies.
European leaders have for months been discussing security guarantees for Ukraine, with the latest proposals envisioning a contingent of foreign troops deployed in Ukraine to prevent another possible Russian invasion — but only in the event of a ceasefire.
"We're in danger of a kind of ridiculous chicken and egg situation here, or a trap by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, whereby all these so-called security guarantees and boots on the ground, none of that becomes relevant until such a time as there is a ceasefire or armistice.
"And the conditions for that deployment, if we insist on a ceasefire, may never be met."
Russia has no intention to stop fighting and Kremlin officials have made no secret of the fact.
The head of Russia's military on Aug. 30 said Moscow will continue both fighting on the front lines, and launching mass missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.
Johnson's solution? European troops on the ground in Ukraine immediately without waiting for permission from Moscow, or an end to the fighting.
"Just get on with it," he said when asked if Europe just needs the courage to cross what is yet another of Russia's many red lines during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine which amounted to nothing.
"You need something that's going to flip a switch in the Kremlin's brain and make them realise that fundamentally, strategically, this is over," he said.
"And although it may be impossible to get Putin out of the bits he currently occupies, the cost of trying to get the rest is going to be too great… because the West has asserted its commitment.
"And the way for the West to assert its commitment would be to say, well, the Coalition of the Willing will start to arrive."
Johnson is keen to stress that European troops would be there to provide training and logistics rather than fighting, in part because "Ukrainians are much better than Western Europeans at fighting the war."
"But fundamentally, they're going to be there to make the point that Ukraine decides what military forces come to Ukraine, not Russia," he adds.
