Ukraine's former president has delivered a devastating critique of Boris Johnson after the Conservative leader linked the struggle of Ukrainians fighting Russia's invasion to people in Britain voting for Brexit.
Speaking at Conservative Party's spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday Mr Johnson made the comparison saying: "I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time". He then went on to say Brexit was an example of this.
Speaking to ITV, Ukraine's former president Petro Poroshenko was scathing of this comparison. Dressed in military clothing and body armour within UKraine the 56-year-old said: "How many citizens of the United Kingdom died because of Brexit? Zero. Can you imagine how many Ukrainians died before the mad Putin aggression? Thousands.
Read more: Does Vladimir Putin have health problems and why do people think he has cancer?
"Only today we have over 150 children who were killed by Russian soldiers and Russian artillery. Only during the last week 2,000 of the children from Mariupol were captured and delivered back to Russia.
"Can I ask you how many houses were destroyed because of Brexit? We have whole cites that were completely erased. Starting with Mariupol which is much worse the Aleppo. With this situation, please, there is no comparison."
Some UK minister have moved to defend Mr Johnson's comments with health secretary Sajid Javid claiming the the PM had been talking about universal “self-determination” telling Sky News: “I think it’s spurious to say he was connecting, somehow, UK and Ukraine in that way – most normal people wouldn’t have drawn that conclusion.”
However others were not so supportive. Tory chairman of the Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood said Mr Johnson's comparison "damages the standard of statecraft" being exhibited in the response to the invasion. In a Twitter comment Mr Ellwood said: "If we are to ultimately defeat Putin we require international leadership and unity. "Comparing the Ukrainian people's fight against Putin's tyranny to the British people voting for Brexit damages the standard of statecraft we were beginning to exhibit."
In his speech at the conference, Mr Johnson had said: "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 it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners. It’s because they wanted to be free, to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.” Get our daily politics and current affairs briefing, Wales Matters, free in your inbox every day, click here.
