Britain declared on Wednesday that the “age of engagement” with Russia is over and Europe now needed a new security strategy based on “defence, deterrence and resilence”.
Liz Truss was due to deliver the landmark message at a working dinner of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels where she was also set to call for the West to quickly and decisively supply more weapons to Ukraine.
For years, the UK and other European nations have sought to keep on engaging with Vladimir Putin’s regime despite its numerous acts of aggression including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury.
But the Foreign Secretary stressed Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, where his forces have committed atrocities widely condemned as war crimes with thousands of civilians killed, meant this policy now had to be ditched.
“The age of engagement with Russia is over,” she was due to say.
“We need a new approach to security in Europe based on resilience, defence and deterrence.”
The 1997 Nato-Russia Founding Act provided the formal basis for bilateral relations with Moscow, including by establishing the Nato-Russia Permanent Joint Council as a forum for consultation and co-operation.
However, Ms Truss was expected to brand this as now “dead” and that it represented an out-dated approach to relations with the Kremlin.
She also warned against raising hopes too much from Russian troops, having suffered heavy losses, being forced to pull back from around Kyiv and other parts of northern Ukraine.
“There is no time for false comfort,” she was expected to stress, as more details of the horrors committed by Russian troops in Bucha, near Kyiv, and other towns and cities are emerging.
She was due to add: “Russia is not retreating, but regrouping and repositioning to push harder in the East and South of Ukraine.”
The Cabinet minister was also set to call for the West to rapidly ramp up support to Ukraine, including by giving Volodymyr Zelensky’s military the weapons it needs to fight for the Russian president’s invasion to fail, strengthening sanctions, and boosting defences so there are no “security vacuums” at the edge of Nato, such as in eastern Europe.
She was also due to call for a rethink of support for countries “caught in the web of Russian influence” such as Georgia, Moldova, Sweden and Finland.
