LONDON – While France, Germany and Italy are talking to Putin these days and are trying to negotiate a complicated agreement on wheat and arms, London is much more circumspect. After all, Boris Johnson said to the point of exhaustion that “Putin must lose in Ukraine”. Indeed, a few weeks ago, he dreamed of a reconquest of the Crimean peninsula by Kiev.
Now the reality is tougher, as the battle in the Donbass demonstrates. But certainly the British fear that the major European countries will fall into some “negotiation trap” of Russia and the recent words of French President Emmanuel Macron (“It is not necessary to humiliate Putin”) have aroused irritation across the Channel. Indeed, according to the Financial Times, the British – who have a historical military connection with Kiev – would be even more hawks than the Americans themselves. Even a few days ago they promised long-range missiles, but at the same time fear a dangerous escalation.
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Certainly, for Washington and London – and for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself – Putin must not come out of this war as a winner. One of the reasons is always the same: the United States and the United Kingdom have firmly committed themselves to the Indo-Pacific risk, from which President Biden has just returned. Any blatant concession, even territorial, to Moscow could represent the pass for hostile actions by Beijing.
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The other day the editorial by the management of the Timesoften aligned with the British military line on Ukraine: “We hear worrying sirens from someone in the West who would like to negotiate with Putin. The right way, however, is to help Kiev win”.
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The Baltic countries are also alarmed, since always the most hawks against Russia for the danger it represents. The Latvian Deputy Prime Minister Artis Pabriks, among others, was very hard: “It seems that some Western leaders want to be humiliated, as well as being totally disconnected from reality”. In short, there is a gap in the Euro-Atlantic bloc. Something new from the western front, which troubles London.