The UK is demanding that the “cancerous growth” Vladimir Putin’s forces are pushed out of the whole of Ukraine, including territory which Russia invaded eight years ago.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the would do all it could to “get the limpet off the rock” and ensure Putin does not retain any hold in the country
His comments came after Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that Russian forces must be pushed out of “the whole of Ukraine” in marked expansion of the west’s ambitions for the conflict in the country.
Wallace said the Russian president Vladimir Putin had failed in his mission to occupy the whole of Ukraine, so was now trying to retain the territory he has held since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea.
He said: “I think it’s certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all its objectives may seek to consolidate what he’s got, sort of fortify and dig in, as he did in 2014, and just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country of Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions.”
He told Sky News: “I think it’s really about if we want this to not happen, we have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back”.
Truss said in a speech at Mansion House, in the City of London on Wednesday evening: “We are doubling down. We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.”
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