Boris Johnson will tell fellow western leaders that only overwhelming solidarity in the face of Russian aggression can avert a devastating conflict in Ukraine, as he flies to the Munich security summit on Saturday.
The prime minister will call on allies to “speak with one voice,” as he prepares to deliver a speech at the annual gathering, against the backdrop of mounting anxiety about Moscow’s intentions.
Events on the ground in Ukraine were moving at ominous speed on Friday, with Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country announcing they planned to evacuate about 700,000 people to Russia from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
On Friday evening the Foreign Office announced the British embassy in Kyiv will “temporarily” relocate to Lviv in the west of Ukraine.
Russia has said Ukraine is committing “genocide” in the eastern Donbas – a claim flatly dismissed by Kyiv.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Kyiv had been acting with restraint despite provocative heavy shelling from separatist-controlled areas in recent days.
In another sign of the growing tensions, a car bomb exploded in the rebel-held city of Donetsk on Friday afternoon. Nobody was hurt in the blast, which took place outside the separatist-controlled administration building.
Late on Friday, a gas pipeline near Luhansk caught fire after “a powerful explosion”, Russian news agencies reported. A second blast hit the city about 40 minutes later, the agencies said.
The explosions follow multiple warnings by Johnson and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, among others, that Russia could use “false flag” incidents as a pretext to justify a military attack on Ukraine.
In recent days, western allies have rejected claims that Russia is withdrawing troops from Ukraine’s border, and raised concerns about shelling by Russian-backed separatists, saying Moscow may be hoping to provoke retaliation to justify military action.
Johnson has discussed the crisis with a series of western leaders in recent days and will hold face-to-face meetings with allies in Munich on Saturday.
In remarks released by Downing Street before his trip, Johnson said: “There is still a chance to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, but it will require an overwhelming display of western solidarity beyond anything we have seen in recent history. Allies need to speak with one voice to stress to President Putin the high price he will pay for any further Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“That is the message I will take to Munich today as we redouble our efforts to prevent a grave miscalculation which would devastate Ukraine, Russia and the rest of Europe.”
The government has drawn up a package of sanctions ready to be applied to Russia in the event of an escalation in the conflict.
The UK is regularly accused of providing a welcome home for the assets of wealthy Russians connected to the Kremlin. The home secretary, Priti Patel, announced on Thursday that she was ending tier 1 “golden” investor visas, which allowed rich foreigners to apply for citizenship, as part of a “renewed crackdown on fraud & illicit finance” – a move widely seen as closing an entry route used by Russian oligarchs.
Western officials hinted on Friday that sanctions could be launched against Russia in the event of a cyber, paramilitary or other non-conventional attack against Ukraine ordered by the Kremlin.
Although a conventional military attack is still considered possible “with very little notice”, western officials are also concerned about a possible escalation of the conflict by Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region or further cyber-attacks on Ukraine, following the targeting of banks and government earlier this week.
An official said the simplest scenario for triggering economic sanctions would be that “missiles might start firing, tanks start coming across the border”.
But they added, “there are other scenarios, very plausible ones, under which the kinds of events we’ve seen over the last 48 hours continue to increase in frequency and intensity, that you see more cyber-attacks, that you see a really big escalation of cyber-attacks against the government of Ukraine. And in that situation, the reality is, it would be more difficult to call exactly when a line had been crossed.”
The topic of what conflict situation would lead to the triggering of economic sanctions against Russia has been under active discussions between the US, EU and UK.
It “cannot only be if there are missiles or tanks or whatever, we may need to judge response in a more complex situation,” the official added.
Analysts believe the next 48 hours are likely to be critical. All the signs suggest Russia is moving inexorably towards some kind of military offensive against Ukraine, a view shared by London and Washington. Putin is personally presiding over nuclear military drills on Saturday.
