The British Prime Minister criticizes the EU’s dependence on Russian gas
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson denounced this Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans in the Ukraine crisis could trigger a conflict of “greater scope” than World War II. “The plan that we are looking at is for something that could really be the biggest war in Europe since 1945,” he told the BBC in an interview recorded in Munich, where he was speaking at the annual conference on international security.
The conservative president relied on data shared by the United States, which points to the simultaneous advance of Russian forces from several fronts on the Ukrainian border. Thus, as explained in the television program, the attack would take place from Belarus, in the north, and from the southeastern regions under the control of pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists in order to “surround” and besiege the capital, Kiev. “All signs indicate that the plan has already begun in some ways,” he added.
Johnson urged the Kremlin to consider the “tremendous cost in human lives” that an invasion of Ukraine would entail, “not just for Ukrainians, but for Russians, particularly young Russians.” The prime minister influenced the BBC in the message of his speech in Munich, where he urged the unity of Western democracies to dissuade Putin from executing the apparent war on the former Soviet republic. “This is a very dangerous time in our history,” he said.
On the other hand, the head of the Government of the United Kingdom described as “tragedy” that “so many European countries continue to inject Russian oil and gas.” “We need to disengage,” he urged, as if dealing with drug addiction. At the security conference, he also advocated cutting off dependence on the supply of hydrocarbons controlled by Moscow because, as he warned, “we cannot allow Russia to blackmail European countries, nor allow the threat of Russian aggression to alter the security infrastructure of Europe”.
Russian money in London
Johnson acknowledged to the BBC that “there is a problem with Russian money in the City” of London. The financial district is considered the world’s “laundry” of shady capital and the center of a swarm of ancillary services for Russian millionaires – from law firms, to banks and parliamentarians with government influence and connections – that is almost impossible to disentangle. This time, the ‘premier’ promised to deal with the controversy through sanctions, transparency about the real owners of companies and properties and even the closure of the City’s foreign exchange markets to Russian investors.
He warned, however, that Putin could prove immune to the tightening of sanctions. “It may be insufficient to deter an irrational actor and we must accept that Vladimir Putin is possibly thinking illogically and does not see the disaster ahead.”
Topics
Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, BBC, European Union (EU), Belarus, Europe, Kiev, London, Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, Crisis in Ukraine
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