by James Tweedie
Boris Johnson led the charge on arming Ukraine – both before and during Moscow's military operation – and imposing sanctions and embargoes on Russian exports that prompted a Europe-wide inflationary crisis.
Now the former Prime Minister says that European leaders had hoped for a quick Russian victory in Ukraine.
In a TV interview last week with a US channel, Johnson also conceded that there were "sound economic reasons" for Germany wanting Kiev to agree swiftly to a peace deal with Moscow but that he "couldn't support" it.
It was Johnson – backed by Washington – who persuaded Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to break off peace talks with Russia just a month into the conflict, when they were on the verge of a breakthrough, during a visit to Kiev in late March.
But a US military analyst says Johnson "miscalculated" by encouraging the clash with Russia.
"The Germans, for all sorts of sound economic reasons, really didn't want it," Johnson told the broadcaster. "I'll tell you a terrible thing, the German view was at one stage that if it were going to happen, which would be a disaster, it would be better for the whole thing to be over quickly and for Ukraine to fold."
"I couldn't support that, I thought that was a disastrous way of looking at it. But I can understand why they thought and felt as they did," Johnson said.
"I remember the Italians, again, massively dependent on Russian hydrocarbons, at one stage simply saying that they would be unable to support the position we were taking," he added.
Johnson was also amongst the most strident voices for sanctions and embargoes on imports of Russian fuels, food and fertilisers, which prompted the inflationary crisis that is set to tip most of Europe into recession.
His government was also one of the biggest providers of military assistance to Ukraine before and after the launch of Russia's military operation on 24th February, which Moscow says pre-empted a Ukrainian offensive on the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics that it had formally recognised days earlier.
Meanwhile, Johnson also accused French President Emmanuel Macron of being too optimistic of a diplomatic solution even as "we could see the Russian battalion tactical groups amassing".
"Be in no doubt that the French were in denial right up until the last moment," he claimed.
Western Miscalculation
Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer, says Johnson had always harboured delusions of being another Winston Churchill, Britain's Second World War leader.
"Churchill was a former military commander and diplomat, while Boris Johnson is a clown in search of a circus," he said.
Johnson had "miscalculated regarding Ukraine and Russia, and foolishly expected the Russian government to allow NATO and the USA and Britain to launch an invasion into the Donbas region in a final extermination of the Russian-speaking people" who had rejected the "puppet" government in Kiev "installed by the United States" in 2014, Bennett said.
"Russia's special military operation was a necessary defensive move against the growing NATO aggression and Ukrainian proxy army threat," the former officer said, "and this defence operation by Russia was fully justified and indeed absolutely necessary in order to preserve the lives of Russians."
Bennett said Johnson's reliance on accusations, threats and insults against Russian president Vladimir Putin led him to "miscalculate and commit errors in his political judgment, communication strategy and policy agenda".
The former PM's downfall came when Brits grew "increasingly dissatisfied" with the conflict in Ukraine and "Britain's wasteful and foolish expenditures of money and resources" and he lost the confidence of his Conservative Party.
Bennett said the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia, which Moscow has blamed on "Anglo-Saxon" nations, was designed to force Germany to "abandon its agenda of removing itself from the conflict and abandoning the US economic sanction war against Russia".
He argued that the sabotage served Washington's agenda since "an enslaved Germany has always been the essential cornerstone of a US-dominated Europe", but stressed it was likewise a miscalculation.
"The German people are increasingly viewing the United States as a slave-master rather than a friend and ally, and this will most likely lead to violent political and social unrest – if not revolution – in Germany over the next six months," Bennett said.
No Will for Peace
Dan Kovalik, adjunct professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of {No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests}, says that there was no country in the West willing to negotiate with Russia.
"The USA, which does not want to negotiate with Russia, and is putting pressure on the EU not to do so as well," he said.
"I think the USA wanted this war," Kovalik added. "That's why it did not address Russia's security concerns that could have been easily addressed.” He believes the West's aim is simply to "destroy Russia".
"They thought if they could suck Russia into Ukraine, they could then turn around and destroy Russia economically and or militarily, which has not happened. And so they want this war to continue and that's why they don't want to negotiate."
He stressed that Russia had always been willing to talk peace but that the talks had been sabotaged by Kiev's allies.
"Russia and Ukraine probably had a deal, at least the outlines of a deal sometime in March or April," Kovalik pointed out, but "Boris Johnson went to scuttle the deal."
Returning to the raft of mutual security proposals that Russia presented to the USA and other NATO members in December 2021 – only to have them rejected out of hand – Kovalik said their belligerent stance would continue "unless there is a change in governments in those countries".
"I don't think in terms of Germany and France that's their instinctual position," he said, but "the USA is kind of running the show and pressuring those countries to take on Russia" – and that policy of trying to "undermine" Moscow would continue.
Sputnik
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