Johnson hints German reliance on Russian gas could affect Ukraine response
theguardian.comBoris Johnson has hinted that Germany may be concerned about the imposition of sanctions against Russia because of its dependence on Russian gas and told MPs diplomatic efforts are being made to persuade Berlin and others to go further.
The British prime minister said that “European friends” had concerns about imposing the toughest possible sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine because of their “heavy dependence” on Russian gas – and also declared the UK would be willing to deploy more troops to eastern Europe if Ukraine was attacked.
Johnson was giving a statement to MPs a day after an evening call between western leaders including the US president, Joe Biden, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
“I think the house needs to understand that one of the big issues that we all face in dealing with Ukraine, in dealing with Russia, is the heavy dependence of our European friends in particular on Russian gas,” Johnson said.
“It was clear in the conversations last night that, in this era of high gas prices, we are bumping up against that reality. So the job of our diplomacy now is to persuade and encourage our friends to go as far as they can to sort this out and to come up with a tough package of economic sanctions because that is what this situation requires,” the prime minister added.
Johnson was responding to a question from the SNP’s Commons leader, Ian Blackford. The prime minister had initially said that western allies were still talking about cutting off Russia from the Swift banking global payments system in the event of an invasion.
“I’m afraid it can only really be deployed with the assistance of the United States, though. We’re in discussions about that.” However, over the
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