Britain had Vladimir Putin’s “invasion plan” before the Russian president ordered his troops into Ukraine, says a former defence minister.
Ex-armed forces minister James Heappey stressed that the West “had the intelligence” about Putin’s invasion launched in February 2022.
But he challenged the suggestion that if Donald Trump had been US president that the Russian leader would not have unleashed his war.
Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister at the time of the invasion, has support as “credible” this claim by Trump.
Asked whether he agreed, Mr Heappey told Times Radio: “That’s an interesting thought. Possibly, possibly.
“It’s hard to see what the West could have done.
“We had the intelligence, we had the invasion plan.
“Unlikely, I think that Trump would have committed troops into Ukraine in order to create the deterrence or an accelerated promise of Nato membership.
“But maybe his dialogue with Putin could have changed things. Who knows?”
America, Britain and other allies warned Putin against sending his troops into Ukraine as they were massing on its borders.
The Russian president is believed to have expected his troops to seize Kyiv within days.
But Ukrainian forces dug in and eventually repelled the Russian advance towards their capital.
Putin’s army was forced to withdraw from close to Kyiv and the war has now become bogged down in a conflict largely in the eastern Donbas region of the country.
Russian troops are gradually seizing more and more territory in the Donetsk province of the Donbas.
But hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, with high casualties also among Ukraine’s army.
Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of civilians have died in Putin’s war.
Volodymyr Zelensky was at No10 for talks with Sir Keir Starmer, and new Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, on Thursday.
Ukraine’s president has been pleading for permission to fire long range missiles supplied by the West deep into Russia to target air bases being used to launch devastating “glide bomb” missions attacking towns and cities.
But Joe Biden’s administration has so far refused to give this consent, amid fears that it could escalate the conflict.
Britain has led the West in pushing for greater military support for Ukraine.
