Boris Johnson: Ukraine paying the price for West’s failure over Putin

Ukraine is “paying the price” for the West’s failure to understand the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, PM says.

Boris Johnson told the BBC that the Russian president’s invasion had “already failed” because he underestimated the “strength of the resistance” in Ukraine.

But he blamed European countries that “went back to trying [Putin] as part of the community” after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Johnson is in Saudi Arabia, discussing energy security.

He said the West needed to ensure that it “would never again be vulnerable to blackmail from Putin,” especially when it came to relying on Russian oil and gas.

The trip was criticized by Labour, who said it was going “cap in hand from one dictator to another”.

Several parliamentarians called on the prime minister to cancel the visit due to the Saudi government’s human rights record. Last week, 81 men were executed in one day.

The prime minister insisted that he did not “turn a blind eye” to the incidents and raised them with the country’s officials.

But he said he had to be “realistic” and “look at the big picture” when it came to energy security.

President Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian territory, in 2014. He later backed an eastern rebellion by pro-Russian separatists, who fought Ukrainian forces in an eight-year war that claimed 14,000 lives.

Despite years of Western sanctions, Russia remains firmly in control of Crimea, which it absorbed after a referendum discredited by much of the international community.

Speaking to BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, the prime minister said: “If you look back at 2014 and what happened when Putin took part in Crimea… what we fail to understand.” [was] the threat it posed and we renormalized.

“European countries went back to treating him like he was part of the community.

“Ukraine is paying the price for that now.”

He also pointed to the strength of the resistance in Ukraine, adding that President Putin was committing war crimes in the country.

Johnson said: “They will not be able to crush and conquer the Ukraine, because they have fundamentally shown that they have an indomitable spirit.”

“You have to withdraw. You have to shut this down. You have to get your tanks and your armor back. And there has to be a solution that respects the will of the Ukrainian people.”

After Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last month, numerous governments introduced sanctions to affect the country’s economy.

And many countries, including the UK, have pledged to phase out the use of the country’s oil and gas to hit it even harder.

Johnson said he planned to look at solar, wind and “make some big bets” on nuclear power in the future, but short-term solutions were also needed.

“The UK has a long-standing and historic relationship with Saudi Arabia, going back many, many decades,” the prime minister said.

“That should in no way prevent us from raising human rights issues.”

He added: “I want to be clear, we don’t, we don’t just turn a blind eye, we don’t wink at them, we don’t ignore it, we bring it up and we make the argument.

“But what we also try to do is look at the global picture and see the impact on the world economy, and particularly the impact on the UK. [as a] hydrocarbon consumer.

“We are in a transition phase now and we have to be realistic about the continued transitional importance of hydrocarbons in our economies.”