Boris Johnson has called for Britain to increase its defence spending to 3 per cent to help guarantee Europe’s security against Russian aggression.
The former prime minister was speaking to The Telegraph during a visit to Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
His trip comes ahead of Sir Keir Starmer travelling to Washington later this week to present Donald Trump with proposals that include Britain boosting its defence spending.
But Mr Johnson said existing plans to increase spending from 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent would still mean Britain was tens of billions below requirements, and he urged it to be upped to 3 per cent by 2030.
He said that a 3 per cent target would help convince Mr Trump that Europe was serious about sharing more of the region’s defence burden, amid concerns that the new administration in the White House is not willing to come to the old Continent’s defence.
“We should get to 3 per cent by 2030,” Mr Johnson said. “2.5 per cent is not enough.”
The former prime minister made the comments in an interview in which he sought to play peacemaker between Washington and Kyiv over Mr Trump’s recent comments that Ukraine provoked its war with Russia.
Mr Johnson described the comments as an insult to Ukraine’s war dead – and also said that Kyiv had a “moral case” to build its own nuclear weapon if the West continued to let it down.
The interview can be heard in full on the new edition of the Telegraph podcast Ukraine: The Latest.
Mr Johnson’s backing of a 3 per cent defence spending target would add around £20 billion to the annual defence budget, and goes far beyond what Labour has currently envisaged. On Sunday, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, described even the existing 2.5 per cent target as “ambitious”.
Mr Johnson, however, said it could provide a boost for the UK economy if spent on domestic defence industries. “We are world-beating in defence industries and drone technology. This can drive employment … across the country. We want to get some growth out of the UK – let’s go for it, and it’s in a great cause.”
The former prime minister remains a hero in Ukraine for his outspoken support for Kyiv at the start of the invasion, when Britain supplied thousands of anti-tank missiles that helped stop Russian attempts to capture the capital. At least four streets are named after him, as is a burger and a croissant, while a Ukrainian Cossack society admitted him as an honorary member.
He is also a close supporter of Mr Trump, however, declaring last year that a second Trump presidency would be helpful to Ukraine.
While he still expresses confidence in Mr Trump, on Monday he was at pains to denounce the US leader’s comments that Volodymyr Zelensky was a dictator who provoked the conflict. “It’s the most egregious piece of victim-blaming I’ve ever seen. To say that Ukraine started the war is nauseating,” he said. “It’s pure Kremlin propaganda, and it’s offensive to the soldiers.”
In an attempt to defuse the row, he insisted that the real aim of Trump’s broadside was to jolt Europe into a proactive role in any peace deal. He said he backed plans for a British and French-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine, and that Kremlin objections to having Western troops there should be ignored as a point of principle.
“(If) you put British boots on the ground in any capacity, a large European force on the ground in Ukraine, you are annihilating Putin’s claims to control of Ukraine,” he said.
Anxiety in Poland
He expressed disappointment that both Germany and Poland had so far ruled out contributing peacekeepers, speculating that it was because both countries had “historic experiences of invading Ukraine” – Germany during the Nazi period, and Poland under the anti-Soviet forces of Marshal Józef Piłsudski.
“I think there’s a bit of anxiety about that, but I think certainly Poland will be there in the end, as will other countries.”
He also urged Sir Keir and other European leaders to stop dithering over whether to permanently confiscate some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets frozen in European clearing houses last year. EU officials have so far been reluctant to do so, fearing retaliatory measures against Western business assets in Russia. Mr Johnson said it would again show Washington that Europe was serious about resolving the Ukraine crisis, and that it was not a question of legality, but simply one of political will.
“The Prime Minister needs to tell the Treasury, even if they don’t like it. But we did it with (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein. We should take these assets… and use them to help the Ukrainians, and help pay for continuing military engagement.
“Ministers have kept saying we should take those assets, but then their treasuries and finance ministries say: ‘Oh no, we couldn’t possibly do that.’ But we’re either serious or we aren’t, and Trump can see that. He can see the fundamental lack of determination.”
Asked if the realignment of Europe’s security architecture might require a pan-European nuclear deterrent – currently only the UK and France possess atomic bombs – Mr Johnson said he opposed any further nuclear proliferation on the Continent. But he expressed sympathy with Mr Zelensky’s recent comments that Ukraine should have a nuclear weapon if it was not allowed Nato membership.
Under the 1994 Budapest memorandum, Ukraine agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in return for international security guarantees – which Kyiv points out Russia has flagrantly violated.
“Ukraine has an honest and reasonable case that they gave up their nuclear capabilities on the understanding that they would be protected. Those protections were not forthcoming,” Mr Johnson said.
“I don’t like the idea of countries acquiring more nuclear weapons. But I can see Ukraine’s moral case. However, they couldn’t just do it illegally, and frankly I think they can win the war without it.”
Mr Johnson also endorsed a proposed $500 billion deal that would allow Washington to access Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits as compensation for America’s wartime assistance. Mr Zelensky had earlier rejected it, saying the terms were exploitative, but reports on Monday said a revised deal was close to being signed.
“If Ukraine does this minerals deal with the US, you are plainly beginning a process of aligning Ukraine economically with the United States, not with the corrupt kleptocracy in Russia,” he said.
He added that even if Washington pulled the plug on US funding for Ukraine altogether, many Ukrainian troops might opt to carry on fighting regardless.
“The fundamental fact is that Ukraine has chosen to be free, and Zelensky I think has been probably been politically strengthened if anything, by attacks on him and on his legitimacy.”
Mr Johnson was speaking at the Yalta European Strategy forum, an international annual conference of leaders organised by Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch and philanthropist.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
