Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested that Donald Trump’s presidency would have prevented Russia from invading Ukraine in 2022.
Johnson said that Ukraine’s resistance is “absolutely existential for freedom and democracy” and the Eastern European country’s fall would be an “absolute catastrophe.” He then stated that Trump “understands that.”
“I don’t think that he will want to go down in history as the guy who launched his second presidential term not by making America great but by making the Soviet Union great again,” Johnson said in an interview with The Telegraph published on Thursday.
The ex-president, who has voiced skepticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine, has repeatedly mentioned on the campaign trail that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he was the commander-in-chief. Since Russia first attacked Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided around $60 billion in military assistance to the war-torn country.
The former president met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week in New York. Before the sit-down, Trump told reporters he could broker a deal to end the war “very quickly.”
“We’re going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled,” Trump said.
“We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship — as you know — with President Putin. And I think if we win, I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly,” the GOP nominee added before Zelensky chimed in and said “I hope we have more good relations,”
“I think that we can work out something that’s good for both sides,” Trump said. “It’s time. By the way, the president [Zelensky] knows that too. He wants to get something done. He doesn’t want to do this.”
Johnson praised Trump’s unpredictability during the wide-ranging interview and said he spoke with the GOP nominee “quite recently.”
“One of the virtues of Trump is his sheer unpredictability,” Johnson said. “That’s one of the reasons why I look at how he actually behaved on foreign affairs and I contrast it with what people say about him.”
“He expelled 60 Russian spies [after the Salisbury poisonings],” he continued. “He was much tougher on Syria than the Democrat administrations. He was tougher on the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and then he gave the Ukrainians the Javelin missile.”
