https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/08/17/7470821/
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has expressed his support for Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast and has called on Ukraine’s partners to lift all restrictions on Ukraine using Western-supplied weapons.
Not gonna lie, that headline had me on the first half. I was getting mad up until the last three words.
Same. I started thinking “why, that stupid shit-for-brains…” and had to reel that in with the last few words.
::confused slow clap::
When it came to the Ukraine situation, he has, in general, not missed a beat.
The UK has given an impressive amount of gear to the Ukrainians given the size of the UK military, whilst everyone else was dithering and wondering what to give and how much to ensure they still had some stuff at home, the UK attitude was "give them all the things and we'll worry about it later".
Obviously countries like Poland had to be more cautious.
A lot of training and intelligence has been given to Ukraine as well. The UK continues to host Ukrainian troops for training.
The UK even made binding "boots on the ground" support agreements to Norway and Sweden in case Russia tried anything during their NATO membership process.
UK gave a bunch of Challenger 2 tanks with "do what you like with them" terms, not just "pwease don't shooty shoot on Wussian tewwitory" nonsense. This was a token gesture as actually Ukraine really wanted the German stuff but it opened the door a bit to basically embarrass Germany into getting it's act together.
As much as I don't like the man, Johnson did well when it came to supporting Ukraine, and credit should be given where it is due.
Yes, I think we can all be thankful that all of the major British political parties were united on the need to support Ukraine. As my Ukrainian friends will always point out - Don't think of it as Europe "helping" Ukraine - instead think of it as Ukraine taking the brunt of Russian aggression to save Europe.
And it's so easily fixable too. "Boris Johnson calls to lift ban on Ukraine using"... etc. or just move "to be lifted" immediately after "ban".
It a definite instance where keeping the preposition in ("the ban on") would have been clearer.
These limitations on Ukraine really need to be lifted. Ukraine needs freedom to attack the best strategic targets they can, whether they are in Ukraine occupied areas or in Russia. Since Russia annexed the occupied territories, there's not a big difference anyway.
The only problem I see is that it's escalatory. If Ukraine starts using Western-supplied weapons for offensive operations, this situation goes from supplying war material for defense (under-the-table proxy war) to full-on overt proxy war. Russia will spin this as "NATO is using Ukraine to attack us" (though they're probably doing that already).
I can't see how this won't lead to a wider conflict.
I'm sure you're right.
How do we use our understanding of that, and the way that they operate, to avoid a full scale war?
There IS a full scale war going on. 31,000 confirmed dead Ukranian soldiers, and up to 120,000 dead Russian soldiers. We don't even have a good idea how many civilian deaths, but the total death toll could be as high as 500,000.
And no, before you start - Mutually Assured Destruction isn't "a full scale war". Its Annihilation of both sides, and has no precedent in the history of war.
Putin can't even hold his own territory. I don't think even he would open another front by attacking a NATO member even if the west started greenlighting their weapons be used in the incursion.
We already crossed many times their "red lines". This is just the good old "China's Final Warning".
They are already barely managing to slowly advance against a single foe, which is still transitioning between the old soviet warfare ways toward NATO's one, with far less soldiers, I doubt they would ever hold against the full alliance firepower.
The only problem I see is that it's escalatory
Wasn't invading Ukraine escalatory in the first place?
Russia is Already losing to U.S. weapons being used by Ukraine. Do you really think they want to find out what U.S. weapons used by the U.S. feels like?
Boris calling for escalation again when he's the one who talked zelensky out of a peace deal earlier in the war? Nooo.
I feel like he changed his mind when he saw how upset i was while reading through the first half
I will admit that I am confounded by how often I agree with Boris Johnson’s views on providing military aid to Ukraine, considering I almost always vehemently disagree with him on pretty much anything and everything else.
Yeah he's one of the very few Western politicians who is taking the threat Russia poses to European security seriously. I found it unexpected tbh considering all of his other views.
I was enjoying not hearing from this buffoon way too much, just like I will enjoy not hearing about Trump one day.
So I'll just go:' oh no anyway' on this one and hope the next but about him is further in the future.
If David Cameron can come back and be relevant again, I guess any sufficiently aristo Brit can.
Ya boy looks like he half way to becoming a sith lord. Somebody get this man an espresso.
Doesn't Storm Shadow require Western operators to program targets? I want Ukraine to win this war of national survival (unlike the US administration) but Western operators programming missiles to hit targets in Russia does sound escalatory to me. I'd rather see Ukraine receive a decent number of F16s (i.e. much more than currently pledged) with corresponding munitions. There's a lot of really useful stuff in the Western arsenal that would otherwise remain unused forever, including older-gen glide bombs & standoff weapons. It's not going to be the Wunderwaffen winning this war, anyway. But an ample supply of decent weapons could work wonders. Just look at the success of Russia's cheap glide bomb upgrades. (Sorry for the wall of text, by the way, but I can't get Connect for Android to retain line breaks)
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Amen. Dude totally fucked the UK for a hundred years. Not that I’m crying over it, given their past, but the regular people deserved better than Brexit.
