(London) The United Kingdom stands ready to deploy 1,000 additional soldiers in the event of a “humanitarian crisis” linked to tensions in Ukraine, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday evening, who is traveling to Brussels and Warsaw on Thursday.
Posted at 5:37 p.m.
“The alliance must draw lines in the snow and be clear that there are certain principles we will not compromise on,” the British leader said in a statement, citing “the security of each ally (at within) of NATO and the right of any European democracy to aspire to NATO membership”.
Banning Ukraine from joining the Alliance is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main security demands in the current crisis, where Westerners accuse Moscow of preparing to invade the country.
During his trip, Boris Johnson is due to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, then Polish President Andrzej Duda and his Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Warsaw.
Boris Johnson has announced that 1,000 additional British soldiers will stand ready to support NATO and allies in the event of a “humanitarian crisis”, according to Downing Street.
The British proposal to strengthen NATO defenses includes, in particular, the doubling of the number of British troops in Estonia (around 900 soldiers currently in this Baltic state), the deployment of fighter planes in southern Europe and the sending two ships to the Eastern Mediterranean.
London stresses that any Russian incursion into Ukraine would result in a “humanitarian disaster”, which would probably lead to the forced displacement of populations on the borders of Europe, in particular towards countries such as Lithuania and Poland.
The United Kingdom announced this week the deployment of 350 additional soldiers in Poland, in addition to a hundred soldiers already present on its territory.
Boris Johnson, who visited Kiev this week, told Moscow: “What we need to see is real diplomacy, not coercive diplomacy”.
Its Foreign Minister Liz Truss arrived in the Russian capital on Wednesday to meet her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and “strongly” encourage Russia to engage in the diplomatic process.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded by calling for a “change of tone” on the British side, without which “any productive interaction is impossible, whether to settle bilateral problems or international problems”.