Boris Johnson has declared Russia “must fail and be seen to fail” if it invades Ukraine, warning of a bloody and protracted conflict once Russian troops cross the border.
In a speech on Saturday to the Munich security conference, which went further than many other speeches condemning Vladimir Putin’s action, Johnson did not rule out 11th-hour diplomacy, but made clear that a Russian victory would send disastrous echoes around the world that the postwar order is being dismantled by force. He said overall the omens were grim.
He said: “If dialogue fails and if Russia chooses to use violence against an innocent and peaceful population in Ukraine, and to disregard the norms of civilised behaviour between states, and to disregard the Charter of the United Nations, then we at this conference should be in no doubt that it is in our collective interest that Russia should ultimately fail and be seen to fail.”
He added: “I believe that in preparing to invade Ukraine, a proud country whose armed forces now exceed 200,000 personnel, considerably more expert in combat today than in 2014, President Putin and his circle are gravely miscalculating.”
He backed up his remarks in a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, where the two men agreed an invasion would be met with fierce resistance.
Zelenskiy, receiving a standing ovation, told the conference Ukraine is longing for peace and Europe is longing for peace.
Zelenskiy had flown from Kyiv to the conference in Germany, despite advice from the US president, Joe Biden, that it might not be wise to do so. He met Johnson, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, spelling out that he needed more military protection to stave off an invasion.
Zelenskiy used much of his 20-minute address to challenge the west about what had happened to its promise of Nato membership, and asked what message the west had for the two soldiers killed on the frontline on Saturday.
Zelenskiy called for world leaders to meet to create a new security architecture. He said: “The security architecture of our world is brittle, obsolete and the rules that were agreed dozens of years ago are no longer working. The security system is slow and failing us time and time again.”
He blamed “egotism arrogance and irresponsibility at the global level. Some countries resort to crime and others resort to indifference”. “It is too late to fix the current architecture. It is high time for a new one before we pay with millions of casualties.”
But he vowed his country would support itself with or without the help of its partners.
The conference heard a plethora of world leaders promise severe economic sanctions on Russia if an invasion went ahead, but also various gradations of optimism about whether talks could still find a path to de-escalation.
A meeting of G7 foreign ministers chaired by the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, issued a statement of solidarity. Baerbock said: “We are facing the unimaginable concrete threat of a military conflict at the heart of Europe,” adding the world knows Russia must be made responsible for the steps that were unseen since the cold war.
She said Russia was behind an orchestrated false-flag operation to provide a pretext to launch an attack in Eastern Ukraine. She said: “We are not talking about days, but minutes and hours.” The meeting was attended by the Ukrainian foreign minister.
She said she did not know if “an attack was a done deal”. A breach of the integrity of the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine would be sufficient to trigger sanctions, but she did not precisely define this phrase, adding there could be different trigger points.
Earlier the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, had been the clearest yet on the sanctions being envisaged. “We – the EU and its transatlantic partners – have been preparing a robust package of financial and economic sanctions, including on energy and cutting-edge technology,” she said. “If the Kremlin strikes, we can impose high costs and severe consequences on Moscow’s economic interests. The Kremlin’s dangerous thinking, which comes straight out of a dark past, may cost Russia a prosperous future.”
Harris said the United States would reinforce Nato’s eastern flank to act as a further deterrent to any Russian military action in addition to the threat of sanctions.
“We have prepared economic measures that will be swift, severe and united,” she said. “We will target Russia’s financial institutions and key industries.”
She added those who support the Putin regime and had aided and abetted the invasion would also be targeted. The full Russian playbook of false-flag operations was under way, she said, adding the US commitment to Nato’s Article 5 is ironclad.
Security officials have warned that Russia has forces in place to invade Ukraine at any moment, and said Moscow could be seeking to create an excuse to invade with a false-flag operation. Baerbock urged more OSCE monitors be sent to the region to establish facts on the ground.
Russia opened an investigation on Saturday into Russian media reports that a Ukrainian shell exploded in Russia’s region of Rostov about 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) from the border.
Scholz said it was unacceptable that a war in Europe was imminent over Russia’s demand that Ukraine’s path to Nato membership be blocked, when Putin knew such membership was not on the agenda. He also described as ridiculous claims by Putin that a genocide was under way in the Donbas.
