She did not exactly call for regime change in Moscow, but her speech at the Mansion House last week contained the disappointing estimate that Russia’s ouster from Ukraine could take five years – longer than World War II. “The war in Ukraine is our war,” he said, without fear of using the word “W”, “and we have been for a long time.” It was the most militant speech by a British Foreign Secretary since the Cold War. And it was also very much in the crosshairs of China, demanding the accumulation of NATO in the Indo-Pacific. I’m not sure Britain is ready enough for that. Ms Truss presented Britain’s war targets in Ukraine, for the first time indeed, as it was nothing less than the withdrawal of Russian forces from all occupied territories in Ukraine. This includes the Crimean peninsula, which has been in Russian hands for almost eight years and is considered, at least in the Kremlin, an integral part of Russia. We have been here before. Britain fought Russia over Crimea in the 1850s. We were on the side of the Muslim caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, then. It was complicated. The British public never really understood the Crimean War, although they watched it furiously in the press, especially when reporters reported on the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders – the Thin Red Line – stand against the Russian cavalry in Balaclava, which gave us the woolen hat. After the siege of Sevastopol, we somehow won. The Russian navy was virtually banned by the Black Sea. Now, there is no prospect of the Royal Scottish Constitution accumulating to invade Sevastopol. Ms. Tras has made it very clear, like Boris Johnson, that British boots will not be on the ground in the Ukraine war. But almost everything else will be. We have looted our arsenal of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles and we are sending as many armored vehicles as the Ukrainians can withstand. It is only the beginning At Liz we Truss? MS Truss announced a “step change” in the war effort. “We need to restart, reformulate and reshape our approach,” he said, promising “heavy weapons, tanks, planes – digging deep into our stocks, increasing production.” We are already arranging the transportation with the USA of heavy armor, tanks, artillery. Negotiations are underway to supply Kiev with jets from NATO countries such as Poland, which will be “filled” by British replacements. Britain is sending an additional 8,000 troops to frontline countries in Eastern Europe as part of Operation Hedgehog to bolster NATO’s “tough force”. British weapons are used in strikes on Russian soil, apparently with the support of the United Kingdom Secretary of the Armed Forces, James Heappey. All this is to help Ukraine win the battle of Donbass – to win it, not just hold the line. As readers of this column may know, I have supported British military involvement in Ukraine since the day the Russians invaded. NATO may have made mistakes in the past because of its hasty expansion, but Vladimir Putin’s illegal and unprovoked offensive war has changed all that. I think Britain can be reasonably proud to have pushed NATO countries in Europe – especially Germany, which had sold its soul for Russian gas – to support the Ukrainian war effort. Readers may also know that I regret the failure of Westminster and Holyrood to prepare the British public for what they are now engaged in: which is a full-scale proxy war with Russia. Obsessed with partygate and other trivial bubbles, the British media also failed to keep track of what was happening. Just this week, BBC interviews began to ask, somewhat puzzled, questions about the escalation and possible retaliation. E, what exactly have we got into, they wondered? Because there was indeed a stage change. We are no longer trying to stop Putin and force him to the negotiating table – we have decided that the Russian forces must be “completely defeated.” Victory or failure. in the UK BORIS Johnson made this clear on April 19 in the Commons in a statement that was ignored due to partygate. And it did not go unnoticed by Putin that the United Kingdom chose to be the first country in the NATO war, as it sees it, against Russia. It’s hard to miss when Ukrainians call the streets Boris Johnson and sing God Save The Queen when they launch NLAW anti-tank missiles at Russian tanks with remarkable success, according to NATO reports. “The British leadership is deliberately worsening the situation around Ukraine,” the Kremlin said. Putin has warned of “lightning strikes” against those who “intervene” and wage “economic war” in Russia. Putin unveiled Russia’s new Satan 2 Sarmat missile last week, a weapon that can carry nuclear cargo to the UK in 200 seconds, supposedly too fast for radar. As one of Putin’s puppets, Vladimir Solovyov, put it on state television, “a Sarmat means minus a Great Britain.” Nuclear threat? NOW, I do not think a nuclear attack is imminent or possible, but some form of retaliation is likely to be. We have seen chemical weapons used by Russian agents at least twice on British soil. There are almost certainly Russian agents working in Britain, most likely posing as Ukrainian refugees. Immigration control is so useless that they have probably entered with passports in the name of “Volodymyr Zelenskyy”. Putin claimed outrageously that he was conducting a “special operation” to uproot the Nazis in Ukraine. You just have to look at the reports in the Russian media to realize that his view of the Russian victims is widely shared. This is due to the fact that he has spent years regulating public opinion through the media channels that are effectively controlled by the Kremlin. Fascism front Russian viewers really believe that they are waging a war against fascism. This is an extremely emotional issue in a country that lost 20 million people in the last war against the Nazis. We have no state-controlled media – one of the biggest strengths of the West. But that only works when the press is setting the right priorities. Future historians will be surprised that, at a time when the United Kingdom was embroiled in a new war against Russia, the conflict was sidelined day by day due to a controversy over the number 10 sanctions. mission to explain. Boris Johnson has taken a great turn in escalating this new war. The Prime Minister has made many of the right calls. But we must always remember the fatal attraction that war has in store for political leaders, especially those who have lost the support of the public. Winston Churchill has always been the idol of Boris Johnson and it is very likely that he will see this new and dangerous situation through the prism of Churchill. Churchill was a great leader of war, but also prone to adventure and delusion. That’s why we need democratic control more than ever in times of war. At the moment, we do not understand.
