Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he is “quite sad” about what he describes as waning interest in the UK in supporting Ukraine.

Speaking to The Telegraph at the Ukrainian embassy in London on Saturday, he lamented that support for Ukraine in the UK is declining.

“The interest in Ukraine and the appetite is so low nowadays. I find it quite sad,” Johnson said.

When asked to evaluate how well current Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration has handled the Ukraine conflict, he responded: “There are a lot of domestic issues that are very difficult right now, and you can see why they’re distracted.”

Support among the British public for aid to Ukraine has fallen in recent years, polls suggest.

A YouGov poll from February 2023 showed that nearly three-quarters of respondents believed the UK was not providing Kiev with enough aid, whereas only 3% thought it was giving too much.

However, an Ipsos survey from this past February indicated that just over half of Britons supported the current level of aid, whereas nearly one in five said too much support was being provided.

The UK has committed £18.3 billion ($24.5 billion) in total aid to Ukraine, including £13 billion ($17.4 billion) in military assistance.

London has increasingly lobbied to deploy “peacekeeping” troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire as part of a so-called “coalition of the willing.”

Last week, Starmer’s government announced that the coalition would set up permanent headquarters in Paris to coordinate with Kiev to “regenerate land forces” for Ukraine and “secure” its skies with fighter jets if there is a cessation in the hostilities.

Moscow has stressed that it views the initiative as preparation for a military intervention and warned that it views any NATO troops – under the guise of peacekeepers or not – in Ukraine as hostile.

Johnson resigned as UK prime minister in 2022, a few months after the escalation of the conflict. He torpedoed the first peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul that year by convincing the latter to withdraw from the negotiations, according to the Ukrainian head negotiator at the time, David Arakhamia.

https://www.rt.com/news/621737-boris-johnson-ukraine-support/

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Frustration is growing in Germany over increased aid to Ukraine while domestic spending lags, co-chair of opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel has said. 

Berlin has been one of Kiev’s largest military backers since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Earlier this year, the German Defense Ministry announced that it would provide €5 billion ($5.6 billion) to finance long-range weapons production in Ukraine. 

In an interview with the broadcaster ARD on Sunday, Weidel criticized the allocation of funds to Kiev, citing unmet domestic needs. Asked about alternative uses for public funds, she pointed to a shelved proposal to abolish electricity taxes, which would have cost the state €5.4 billion – comparable to what Berlin is spending on weapons for Ukraine, she argued. 

“And then our government, the Friedrich Merz government, gives Ukraine nine billion in German tax money and now wants to buy Patriot missiles for Ukraine for five billion. Nobody understands that anymore,” Weidel said.  

https://www.rt.com/news/621759-germany-opposition-ukraine-aid/

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The EU is demonizing Russia in order to keep the Ukraine conflict running as Brussels still has not given up hope of suppressing Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

In May, the EU adopted the €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument to support members that are willing to invest in defense. The move came as part of a larger military buildup drive that began in the bloc after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 with the goal of countering what it perceives as the ‘Russian threat’. Moscow has dismissed claims that it intends to attack NATO countries as “nonsense,” saying that Western politicians are seeking to scare their populations to justify increased military spending.

In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin released on Sunday, Peskov said the EU “is creating an enemy for itself, doing focused, professional work both in their own society and abroad in order to portray Russia as the devil incarnate... in order to ensure the continuation of the conflict, in order to suppress Russia.” 

https://www.rt.com/russia/621735-eu-ukraine-nato-peskov/?ysclid=mddiya6jrz276482553

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