Trump thinks Ukraine is to blame for the war – got anything to say, Boris?

The former prime minister used to be a vocal supporter of Kyiv – but, along with other key figures on the political right, has he now taken an isolationist position to appease the US president, asks Sean O’Grady

As we watch the endgame tragedy of Ukraine and President Zelensky desperately struggles to salvage anything from the peace talks he’s been excluded from, he must wonder: where are my dear friends in the West when I need them?

Some are already edging away from the apparently staunch loyalty they once offered; others have fallen silent. And one man appears to have contorted himself into a position of abject appeasement, a “guilty man” if ever there was one. It’s quite an astonishing, unbelievable switchback – or would be, had it not been performed by the ever-shameless Boris Johnson.

You may recall (how could one not) the way back in 2022 that Johnson, as prime minister, spotted the growing menace of Russia’s military manoeuvres around Ukraine. He sent what military, political and diplomatic support he could, and when the Russian invasion was launched, under the hideous euphemism of a “special military operation”, Johnson emerged as an almost Churchillian figure.

Many around Europe and in the Biden White House quietly assumed that Ukraine would be wiped out in weeks. Zelensky appealed for help from his European friends. The Germans, ever nervous of offending the Kremlin, offered to send Kyiv some helmets.

But Johnson sent more useful, lethal materiel and, within days, took himself off to the Ukrainian capital to see what was happening – the first of many morale-boosting visits (more often than not involving him posing with tanks and combat rifles).

In May, the Russians safely pushed back, and he returned to give an address to the Ukrainian parliament: “So no outsider like me can speak lightly about how the conflict could be settled, if only Ukraine would relinquish this or that piece or territory or we find some compromise for Vladimir Putin. We know what happens to the people left in the in clutches of this invader.”

As prime minister, Boris Johnson visited President Zelensky in Kyiv (PA)

We do indeed. And a few months later, in the House of Commons, now speaking from the backbenches, Johnson was unequivocal about Western war aims, in terms that were to be heard so often in the ensuing bitter months of the attritional war:

“At this turning point in the war, it is more vital than ever that we have the strategic patience to hold our nerve and ensure that Ukrainians succeed in recapturing their territory right to the borders of 24 February and, if possible, to the pre-2014 boundaries, because that is what international law demands … It was our collective failure to insist on upholding international law eight years ago that emboldened Putin to launch his disastrous invasion this year.”

No one did more than Johnson to persuade the European powers and the Americans to see the vital importance of Ukraine’s struggle for the West – and to call Putin’s bluff.

And now? For reasons that aren’t clear, with Donald Trump reinstalled in the White House, Johnson seems to have instantly transformed into the kind of arch-appeaser and apologist for America’s betrayal that one imagines he would have despised during his more heroic phase. Rather than chastising Trump for giving in to Putin and treating him as a diplomatic equal, Johnson now looks to go out of his way to be understanding and, where he cannot, suggests that Trump is being resolute and statesmanlike. He blames the Europeans for caving in when surely he knows full well, as Zelensky reminds us, that only the US can defend Ukraine.

It is as outrageous an exercise in gaslighting as anything Johnson did during the Partygate scandal. He seriously asserts, even as Zelensky is locked out of the negotiating chamber and told by the Americans that he can never get his country back, that: “Trump is right to talk to Putin and Zelensky, as he said he would – and no, I see no sign whatever that he will betray the Ukrainians.”

No sign whatever?

What, apart from a surrender masquerading as a peace conference in Riyadh? Apart from everything his officials say? Apart from Zelensky saying he cannot accept a deal done in his absence? One where the Ukrainians, Europeans, and, indeed, the British are so humiliatingly excluded, indeed disregarded? The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, sitting easily at the negotiating table with Sergei Lavrov? Where Trump has said he is in a hurry to get a deal, and his defence secretary has said Nato membership for Ukraine is so unrealistic that it can be ignored?

According to Johnson, Trump “believes there can be no peace deal unless Putin gives back land that he currently holds”, but certainly that doesn’t mean all the territory Russia has stolen. It’s a typical Johnson sleight of hand.

Outrageously and absurdly, Johnson asserts that Trump “can’t launch his presidency with a rout for the West and allow Putin to humiliate Nato. He cannot and will not tolerate another Afghanistan, the chaotic implosion of a Western-facing government, and be in no doubt that is what would happen.” Yeah, right. Just watch, Boris, just watch...

Of course, Johnson is not alone. Liz Truss, as foreign secretary and prime minister, was, if anything, even more hawkish towards Putin. In her only party conference speech as leader, she declared: “We should not give in to those who want a deal which trades away Ukrainian land. They are proposing to pay in Ukrainian lives for the illusion of peace. We will stand with our Ukrainian friends however long it takes. Ukraine can win, Ukraine must win, and Ukraine will win.”

Nearly right, Liz. As yet, there’s no sign that she (like many on the right) has come to terms with the fact that her great hero, Trump, is a friend and ally of her great enemy, Putin. It is discombobulating – but, then again, she doesn’t have the moral and verbal dexterity of Johnson.

Rishi Sunak, who continued the Johnson-Truss policy of adamantine resistance, has also gone a bit quiet. The last Conservative prime minister has confined himself to saying that the “United Kingdom and its European allies must lead in providing Ukraine military support and potentially military presence across land, air and sea, to give Ukraine confidence that any peace will endure?” Which, he must know, won’t be sufficient to stop Putin without the Americans standing behind it.

Others on the right are also suffering some disorientation. The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, got himself into trouble during the election by suggesting that it was Nato’s “provocation” that meant Putin invaded – and wanted a “deal” (ie give Putin his reward) asap. Yet Farage now breaks with his friend Trump and says: “Ukraine now joining Nato is almost an essential part of this peace deal.” Farage’s deputy, Richard Tice, for what it is worth, is more consistently isolationist.

The speeches and articles Johnson should be pumping out now should be stentorian condemnations of a historic mistake now being made by the West – and with the Trump administration driving the capitulation, and an entirely unnecessary one.

Instead, Johnson suggests the Europeans should stop behaving like “sulky kids” waiting for the grown-ups in Washington to sort things out. But it is only with American support – a “backstop” – that Keir Starmer’s plan for European military guarantees can protect Ukraine.

Johnson must know that – but chooses not to say it, reserving his ire for Joe Biden and Barack Obama. They made their mistakes, but they did not abandon Ukraine at just the moment the tide could have turned. Trump did, as was widely expected. Johnson was the last person we might have expected to let the Ukrainians down. Or maybe not.