Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to throw Europe into its greatest warfare since World War II, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who also warned that an invasion of Ukraine would cut Moscow off from global financial markets.
According to Johnson, Russian troops would not only enter Ukraine from the rebel-held east, but also from Belarus to the north, encircling the capital Kyiv, citing US intelligence conveyed to Western nations by President Joe Biden.
In a speech Saturday to the conference in Germany, Johnson warned that Western sanctions in response to any invasion would make it “impossible” for President Vladimir Putin’s regime to access the City of London’s deep capital markets.
He said that the sanctions would have a global impact, telling the BBC that they would prevent Russian enterprises from “dealing in pounds and dollars,” which he said would punish Russia “very, very severely.”
Although Johnson’s party claims all of its donations are lawful, the UK government has long been accused of turning a blind eye to lucrative flows of Russian-sourced money through London, some of which has wound up in Conservative coffers.
In the wake of allegations that Putin’s leadership is hiding enormous sums of money overseas, British company and property ownership laws have long favored investors who want to keep their involvement disguised.
Johnson, on the other hand, said on Saturday that Britain planned to “open up the Matryoshka dolls of Russian-owned corporations and Russian-owned entities, to uncover the ultimate benefactors within.”
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Sunday that unless Russia is stopped in Ukraine, Putin will try to “reset the clock to the mid-1990s or even earlier” by annexing the Baltic States and the Western Balkans.
Home Secretary Priti Patel stated that if war breaks out, the “effects would be felt here too,” citing prior cyber attacks as an example.
