Boris says 'barbarian' Putin is 'panicking' about revolution in Russia and was terrified of having free and democratic Ukraine on his borders - as he warns West must 'take back control' of energy supplies to stop Kremlin.
The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, is "panicking" about revolution in Russia and he is terrified of having democratic Ukraine on his borders, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson said as he delivered keynote speech at the at the Conservative Party spring conference in Blackpool this afternoon.
"He did not really believe that Ukraine was planning to join NATO in the near future. He knew very well that there were no plans to deploy NATO weapons in Ukraine. He did not really believe in the nonsense story about the origin of Russians and Ukrainians. In fact, I think he was afraid of Ukraine for a completely different reason. With each year that Ukraine has improved upon its strategy to become a free and democratic society, progressed with many reforms to achieve greater and open markets, he feared that Ukraine would set an example and that he would be rebuked for it", - Johnson said.
The British Prime Minister stressed that Putin was afraid that a free Ukraine would spark a pro-democracy revolution in Russia, he also reminded that "in Putin's Russia one can be imprisoned for 15 years simply for calling invasion an invasion."
"With each day of Ukraine's heroic resistance, it becomes clearer that Putin has made a catastrophic mistake", - Boris said.
The British Prime Minister condemned the "vicious and barbaric attack on innocent civilians" and compared Russia's attack on Ukraine to the actions of the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler in the 1940s.