Boris Johnson on Ukraine: ‘Let’s Face It, We’re Waging a Proxy War ... but We’re Not Giving Our Proxies the Ability To Do the Job’

Johnson: “I get back to my earlier question, how — we are — let’s face it, we’re waging a proxy war. We’re waging a proxy war, but we’re not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. And we’re —- and for years and years now, we’ve been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs and it has been cruel. It has been cruel. And — and we need now to give them what they need. So, three things we need to do. To get this thing done, we need to give them the weaponry they need, give them the permissions they need, give them all the military support, logistical, tactical we can without coming into direct conflict with Russians ourselves. Number two, we need to give them the money. And I talked about the 300 billion. But, number three, we need to make it — and by the way, we should do more than just the 300 billion. We should construct a kind of lend-lease loan for Ukraine. And, you know, half a trillion or whatever so that Putin knows, this is all about Russia knowing what the end state is, to get back to my key point. The Ukrainians, the Russians, the world has to know where we — America, U.K., Europe — want this thing to end up. And we have allowed that ambiguity to drift on and on and on. That is the whole problem with Ukraine. Unless and until we clear it up, you won’t persuade Putin to back down and you won’t get a peace.”