Boris Johnson has compared the Ukrainian people's fight for freedom to British people voting for Brexit.
During the Conservative Party spring conference in Blackpool, the Prime Minister described Vladimir Putin's invasion as a "turning point for the world" and a choice between "freedom and oppression". Comparing it to the referendum to leave the European Union and the Covid-19 vaccination drive, he said that Brits “choose freedom every time”.
Mr Johnson said: “It’s a moment of choice. It’s a choice between freedom and oppression. I know there are some around the world, even in some western governments… who say that we’re better off making accommodations with tyranny. I believe they are profoundly wrong and to try to renormalise relations with Putin after this, as we did in 2014, would be to make exactly the same mistake.”
READ MORE : Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine motivated by fear, Boris Johnson claims
He continued: "I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples; when the British people voted for Brexit in such large numbers, I don't believe they were remotely hostile to foreigners, it's because they wanted to be free."
Also during his speech, Mr Johnson claimed that Mr Putin "was frightened" of Ukraine and that the brutal invasion of his neighbour was motivated by the fear a successful Ukraine would trigger a pro-democracy revolution in Moscow.
He added that Mr Putin was in a “total panic” about the prospect of a popular uprising if freedom was allowed to flourish in Kyiv.
Mr Johnson told the conference: “I think he was frightened of Ukraine for an entirely different reason. He was frightened of Ukraine because in Ukraine they have a free press and in Ukraine they have free elections.
What do you make of his comments? Have your say below
"[It is] precisely because Ukraine and Russia have been so historically close that he has been terrified of the effect of that Ukrainian model on him and on Russia. He has been in a total panic about a so-called colour revolution in Moscow itself and that is why he is trying so brutally to snuff out the flame of freedom in Ukraine and that’s why it is so vital that he fails.
“A victorious Putin will not stop in Ukraine, and the end of freedom in Ukraine will mean the extinction of any hope of freedom in Georgia and then Moldova, it will mean the beginning of a new age of intimidation across eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”
