Johnson points to catastrophic mistake West made regarding Putin and Ukraine's membership in NATO

Johnson wrote about this in a column for The Washington Post.

According to him, the West used diplomatic ambiguity for decades regarding NATO and Ukraine — and it ended in a complete disaster.

"We spent years telling Ukrainians that we have an “open door” policy in NATO, and that they have the right to “choose their own destiny,” and that Russia should not be able to exercise a veto. And all that time we have overtly signaled to Moscow that Ukraine is never going to join the alliance — because so many NATO members will simply exercise their veto themselves…The result is the worst war in Europe for 80 years,” Johnson wrote.

In his opinion, the West should never have taken into account the argument that the prospect of Ukraine's membership in NATO is "provocative" for Putin and Russia.

"We should have insisted on the reality — that the Kremlin had nothing to fear from NATO because it is a defensive alliance. But member countries accepted this bogus point; I admit that for a time I accepted it.”

He continued that the result of not providing Ukraine with an action plan for NATO membership in 2008 was Russian aggression.

“What did he (Putin - ed.) do next? In 2014, he invaded Donbas and Crimea, with his trademark combination of blatant lies and brutality. Instead of properly punishing him, we responded with a policy of craven appeasement. Far from helping Ukrainians to evict him from their country, we set up the tragicomic “Normandy Format,” under which Russia and Ukraine were treated as though they were equally at fault when Russia was plainly the aggressor and Ukraine was the victim,” Johnson recalled.

He emphasized that if the West had enough courage to bring Ukraine to NATO, then catastrophe could have been prevented.

"For the sake of stability and peace, Ukraine now needs clarity about its position in the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. All our dodging and weaving has ended in slaughter. Ukrainians should be given everything they need to finish this war, as quickly as possible, and we should begin the process of admitting Ukraine to NATO, and begin it now. It would be no use if Moscow complains. They had a case once, and they were heard with respect. That case has been pulverized by the bombs and missiles of Putin," Johnson concluded.

• On January 30, Boris Johnson said that Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile attack on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine.6