Truss warning to Putin
She climbs into tank in echo of Thatcher and vows to uphold Nato alliance
LIZ Truss pledged yesterday to stand up to Russia as she recreated Margaret Thatcher’s iconic photograph riding in a tank.
The Foreign Secretary warned Vladimir Putin against making a ‘strategic mistake’ by launching an invasion of Ukraine.
Ahead of a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Latvia, Miss Truss met British troops deployed as part of the alliance’s presence in neighbouring Estonia.
She mimicked Lady Thatcher by posing for pictures in a British Army Challenger 2 flying the Union flag. In one of the most memorable images of her time in Downing Street, the former prime minister was photographed in a tank in 1986 in West Germany.
Writing on this page, Miss Truss heralds Britain’s role in ‘defending and promoting the frontiers of freedom around the world’.
She tells of her pride in the country’s soldiers she visited yesterday, who she says are ‘flying the flag for liberty and democracy’.
Nato foreign ministers will gather in Riga today to consider how to respond to Russia’s military buildup near the Ukrainian border and the tensions on the frontier between Belarus and Poland. The Foreign Secretary will use the summit to call for the alliance to present a united front against Moscow while also keeping open channels of communication with the Kremlin. ‘It is time for freemake dom-loving democracies to work closer together to realise this vision, with a strong Nato a core part,’ she says.
Miss Truss adds that together with Nato allies she is ‘making clear that any incursion by Russia into Ukraine would be a huge strategic mistake’.
Britain’s national security adviser also warned Russia it would be an error to mount an incursion into Ukraine.
Giving evidence to the Commons defence committee yesterday, Sir Stephen Lovegrove said the fall of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan should not be interpreted in Moscow as a lack of willingness to stand up for European democracies.
‘What I would say to anybody in Russia considering this is there is never going to be a good time to make an incursion into Ukraine,’ he declared. ‘They should not the mistake of interpreting a withdrawal from Afghanistan as a lack of willingness on part of Western allies to stand up for sovereign democracies wherever they are in the world, but certainly in mainland Europe.
‘Russian actions sometimes seem to be driven by an opportunistic type of motivation and I would counsel them very, very clearly not to fall into that trap now.’ Sir Stephen rejected the suggestion that any Western response to a Russian incursion would only amount to ‘mere condemnation’.
‘There will be considerably more activity than a mere condemnation. I would rather not expand on that because that is ultimately a decision for the Prime Minister, but I have absolutely no doubt that that would be the case,’ he said.
Miss Truss’s decision to channel the first female Tory leader will fuel speculation about her own ambitions. A survey of party members for the ConservativeHome website yesterday found she remained the most popular Cabinet minister with a net satisfaction rating of 82.3 per cent.
Miss Truss has been at the top the league table for a year.
She was significantly ahead of Lord Frost, the Brexit negotiator, who was second on 73.3 per cent, and International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was third on 64 per cent.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is seen as a potential rival to Miss Truss, was ninth on 53.3 per cent. Boris Johnson was second from last with a rating of -17.2 per cent, ahead only of chief whip Mark Spencer on -21.1 per cent.
At a Conservative Party conference fringe event in October, Miss Truss chose Mrs Thatcher when asked to pick between her and Winston Churchill.
‘Flying the flag for liberty’