Ukraine is a welcome diversion for Johnson

JOHNSON is never a man to let a crisis go to waste if he can turn it to his own advantage in order to save his failing premiership by invoking the spirit of Churchill.

The war in Ukraine has more in common with World War I than World War II but with fighting on an Eastern Front rather than the

Western Front, with Ukraine’s devastation even worse than that of of Belgium in 1914.

Then the system of alliances designed to prevent war actually triggered war, due largely to foolish guarantees to Serbia from the Russian empire and equally foolish guarantees to the Austro-Hungarian empire from Germany. The alliance between France and Russia and the German invasion of Belgium spread the conflict.

As a 21st-century Tsar, Putin miscalculated that his heavily armed soldiers (many of them battlehardened in Syria) would quickly overwhelm Ukraine.

EU sanctions on Russian exports, as well as arms to Ukraine, will play a major role in aiding Ukraine, but UK offers of asylum are rendered hollow by insurmountable visa red tape and bear no comparison with those of countries in the EU.

No wonder Ukraine views EU membership as their best defence against Russia – in great contrast to Johnson positioning himself at the head of a Leave campaign heavily funded by Russian money.

Basking in the glow of Ukraine’s heroic resistance to Putin is a welcome distraction from Johnson’s abysmal failures on the domestic front where growing dissent can only be suppressed by increasing erosion of our own parliamentary democracy.

Margaret Phelps Penarth