The UK and its Western allies must “double down” to push Russian forces out of “the whole of Ukraine” and secure a victory that is a “strategic imperative for all of us”, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has declared.
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In a keynote speech at Mansion House in London last night, Truss warned that Vladimir Putin was a “rogue operator” who might invade other countries including Georgia and Moldova unless the West hit back hard to defend Ukraine.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, airplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this,” she said, adding that this is “a time for courage, not caution”.
If Putin succeeded in making territorial gains, he could inflict “untold further misery across Europe”, warned Truss, who called for further military and economic support for countries threatened by potential Russian aggression.
The West must also continue to send food, medicine and other essentials to Ukraine to keep the eastern European nation’s economy afloat, she said. And defence budgets must be increased across the Western world.
The Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence “must be a floor, not a ceiling”, Truss insisted.
According to The Times, the foreign secretary “is understood to believe that the war could realistically last up to five years, or even as long as a decade”.
She described modern-day Russia as even less trustworthy than the USSR, whose leaders at least “behaved with some kind of rationality on the world stage”.
“They would de-escalate when they were confronted and called out, as with the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago,” she said. “And they had an eye on their global reputation. None of these factors applies to Putin.”
She “also singled out” China, for refusing to condemn the Ukraine invasion, The Independent reported.
But China “will not continue to rise” if Beijing does “not play by the rules”, she warned. “China needs trade with the G7. We represent around half of the global economy. And we have choices.”
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