War in Ukraine, all diplomatic (and non-diplomatic) efforts of Boris Johnson
How Johnson is moving in the Ukrainian crisis. The article by Daniele Meloni
“An intervention that touched the heart and sensitivity of our Parliament”. This is how British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defined the online intervention of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday in the House of Commons. For Johnson, yesterday was another great day of diplomatic efforts to try to find a way out of the war in Ukraine agreed with American and European partners. During the day, the 4 heads of government of the countries of the Visegrad group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland) presented themselves in Downing Street.
A meeting that was useful to continue to support the role of the United Kingdom as guarantor of the sovereignty and independence of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and to express unanimous condemnation of Vladimir Putin's work in Ukraine. No ideological commonality, no interest in the theses and ideas of the 4 on the EU and on the difficulties of Poland and Hungary in Brussels: as a pragmatic leader Johnson has been working for his country and for its diplomacy, which has been imposed on him for some time , to look east. And this is also how the doubling of UK military forces in Estonia as part of the NATO Enhanced Forward Force mission can be explained.
Yesterday there was also the announcement of the "phasing out" – reduction to 0 – by the end of 2022 of imports of oil and petroleum products from Russia, which amount to 8% of the UK's needs. A move announced in agreement with the US president, Joe Biden. Johnson expressed his admiration for the leadership of the American president in an article published on Sunday by the New York Times , in which he wrote the 6 steps by which the West must neutralize the Russian danger. A real how-to-do that is the manifesto of British diplomatic and economic soft power and also of the desire to help Kiev militarily.
Johnson's week began with another high-level meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and with that of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte . Together the 3 have created the International Support Group, with the aim of helping Ukraine economically, diplomatically and in the long term. The Tory leader announced at the same time the allocation of a further 175 million pounds of UK aid to Ukraine, of which 100 million has been provided directly to the government in Kiev. Then, on Monday afternoon, the UK premier met online with other Western leaders – Biden, Scholz and Macron – to discuss the war.
A full program of commitments and proposals that are exemplifying the Global Britain exposed in the document Global Britain in a competitive age , presented to Parliament by Johnson just a year ago. The Prime Minister also yesterday appointed former MP Tory Richard Harrington (remainer of the college of Watford, London) as minister for refugees (a sort of deputy under-secretary) within the Ministry of the Interior led by Priti Patel. Thus the government hopes to resolve the latest controversies related to the entry of displaced people from Ukrainian cities into the UK.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/boris-johnson-ucraina/ on Wed, 09 Mar 2022 09:10:30 +0000.