Even Boris’s critics admit he’s having a good war. Why? Because it’s a cause he truly believes in
IN DIPLOMATIC circles they call it the ‘off-ramp’. The theory that Vladimir Putin has to be given a way to save his blood-stained face, and exit the Ukrainian quagmire with something he can present to the Russian people as a victory. Though to some in Westminster, it’s known as ‘la rampe de sortie’.
‘It’s the French who are pushing this the strongest,’ one Government official told me. ‘It’s their strategy first and foremost.’
It’s understandable, given the way Emmanuel Macron invested so much political capital in restraining the dictator from the path of invasion, only to then see his faith and hopes ground into the eastern European mud.
But it’s not just Macron who sees the attraction of doing a deal with the devil. Last week Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost spoke of ‘some of the unpalatable choices we may yet have to confront if the fighting in Ukraine is to end, and if this huge crisis is to be managed successfully’.
So is this idea gaining traction within Government? Not if Liz Truss has anything to do with it. ‘Her view is we need to force Putin to back down,’ one of the Foreign Secretary’s officials told me. ‘He must fail.’
Truss’s hawkish views are driven by the belief – strongly shared by many of her colleagues – that too much past pacification of Russia’s dictator has paved the path to the current crisis.
‘She thinks we were woefully absent in 2014 in Crimea, and left Germany and France to run the show,’ an ally told me. That’s why last week she drove a new package of emergency sanctions through the Commons, measures that Ministers say now go further than either the EU or the US. It’s also why she was one of those pushing hard for the declassification and publication of intelligence on the Russian military’s invasion plans and occupation strategy.
‘We haven’t seen sensitive intelligence released on this scale since the Cuban missile crisis,’ one Foreign Office official told me, ‘and it’s been vital for keeping Putin off balance and countering his propaganda machine.’
It’s these echoes of crises past that frame the Foreign Secretary’s current stance. ‘If we give Putin concessions, then we risk being seen to reward aggression,’ an ally explained, ‘and if we do that we won’t just embolden him, we’ll embolden the likes of China,
North Korea and Iran.’
BUT it’s not just a fear of sending the diplomatic dominoes tumbling in the wrong direction that is making Ministers wary of offering Putin an escape route. In the weeks leading up to the invasion, a number of senior Cabinet Ministers engaged in a round of intense negotiations with their Russian counterparts. And they still sport the scars.
‘I sat opposite some of Putin’s closest lieutenants,’ one Minister recalls, ‘and they looked me in the eye and said, “There will be no invasion.” You simply can’t trust them. What would this offramp look like? Where would it actually lead?’
Not through Downing Street. On the eve of the invasion, Boris was told by defence officials it would take a maximum of three weeks for Russia to secure her objectives. So as he’s witnessed the heroic resistance, Ukraine has become not just a political but also an emotional struggle.
He speaks almost daily to Volodymyr Zelensky. He was visibly moved as watched the Ukrainian president’s video address to Parliament. And although he has taken a lead in supporting Ukraine’s resistance, the Prime Minister has told friends he feels a heavy sense of guilt at not being able to do more – particularly the imposition of a no-fly zone.
As a result, in his discussions with Zelensky, Boris is careful not to apply pressure on the embattled leader. ‘He’s told him we will back him whatever,’ an ally revealed. ‘And that if he feels the time has come to negotiate a settlement, he’ll have our wholehearted support.’ But that support also comes with a warning. ‘He’s told Zelensky that if and when it comes to peace talks, he should be extremely sceptical of anything Putin offers. He can’t be trusted. And he shouldn’t feel any pressure from anyone in the international community to cave in to Putin’s demands. If he wants to hold out, we’ll also be there with him.’
There have been times since the Ukrainian crisis broke when the Government has struggled to match its bold words with equally bold deeds. The initial sanctions regime was threadbare. The delay in targeting the oligarchs was negligent. The failure to have a plan in place for the processing of refugees unconscionable.
But those have proven to be system failures on the part of No10, not strategic ones. ‘Boris definitely views this as a defining moment,’ an ally reports. ‘We haven’t seen such a stark international division between right and wrong for quite a long time. He sees it as a moral issue.’
Which is why ushering Putin towards the off-ramp holds so little appeal for him. Over the past couple of weeks, even some of Boris’s most ardent critics have conceded that the PM has stepped up. ‘I think he’s a terrible human being. I think he’s a terrible Prime Minister,’ said former Minister Rory Stewart. ‘But I think he’s done OK on the Ukraine crisis.’
And the reason he’s done that is because he’s finally found a crusade he believes in.
Boris backed Brexit – indeed is seen as one of its architects. But in truth he was a Brexit appropriator, rather than a true believer.
He guided the nation through Covid, and in a way that most recent analysis shows bears positive comparison with the rest of Europe. But lockdown, and everything that went with it, grated with his libertarian instincts.
Now, in Ukraine, he at last has his cause. ‘He sees this as a test,’ a friend reveals. ‘He thinks
the lessons of recent history haven’t been learnt. Putin has to be shown to lose.’
Some people have taken to calling this the Prime Minister’s Falklands moment. But he views events through a different historic prism.
In his book The Churchill Factor, Boris’s opening chapter takes the reader into what he describes as ‘a dingy room in the House of Commons – up some steps, through a creaky old door, and down a dimly lit corridor’. It’s the afternoon of May 28, 1940, and the War Cabinet are assembled. They are confronted by a stark but simple choice. Should they fight? Or should they accept the reality of the situation, take the pragmatic view, and concede to mediated peace talks with Hitler?
Britain would fight, Churchill decreed. Because, as Boris records the moment, ‘he had the vast and almost reckless moral courage to see that fighting on would be appalling, but that surrender would be even worse. He was right’.
HE WAS. In the same way Boris and his Ministers are right now. Putin has his off-ramp. He can turn his tanks around and take the road back to Moscow. That is the compromise that can lead to this huge crisis being managed successfully. Because we’ve seen where compromising with Vladimir Putin – actually, let’s call it what it is: appeasement of Vladimir Putin – has led us before. The first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. The ‘intervention’ in Syria of 2015. The chemical weapons attack in Salisbury of 2018. The second invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Boris is correct. This time Putin must lose. And crucially, the Russian people must see him lose. According to a poll last week, 69 per cent of Russians believe their country is acting as a ‘liberator’. They need to know the truth.
This is not Boris’s Falklands moment. It’s his Churchill moment. Just as it’s Volodymyr Zelensky’s Churchill moment. And the world’s.