Boris Johnson
Hi folks, here's my piece in The Times on the unprecedented action by our allies and partners to halt the Kremlin's reckless ambitions.
Never before have so many countries come together to expel Russian diplomats. By last night, the total stood at more than 20 nations collectively deciding to remove over 100 Kremlin officials.
In the process these allies of Britain have consciously placed themselves at risk of retaliation. Their principled stand in the aftermath of the use of a nerve agent in Salisbury on 4th March may well carry a price, perhaps in the form of some of their own diplomats being removed from Moscow.
So I am deeply grateful to all the nations who have resolved to act. And I believe that yesterday’s events could become a turning point.
Do not underestimate the practical effect of these measures on the Kremlin’s networks of espionage and subversion. When the Foreign Office evicted 23 undeclared intelligence officers from the Russian Embassy in London, we eviscerated the Kremlin’s painstakingly assembled operation in Britain.
Yesterday’s collective action delivers a further blow from which Russian intelligence will need many years to recover.
In the aftermath of what happened in Salisbury, our allies have been motivated by genuine solidarity with Britain. Our diplomats have worked around the clock ever since 4th March and I take the greatest pride in their superb performance.
But I will resist any temptation to proclaim that yesterday’s response was all about us, or that our allies have acted because of our powers of persuasion.
They have responded because they share our view of the threat posed by the Kremlin to their values and security, as well as ours.
The use of a banned nerve agent on British soil falls into a wider pattern of President Vladimir Putin’s reckless behaviour.
In the last four years alone, the Kremlin has annexed Crimea, ignited the flames of conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, hacked the German Bundestag, interfered in elections across the world, sought to hide Asad’s use of poison gas and joined his onslaught against the Syrian people, which continues even as I write.
The common thread is Mr Putin’s willingness to defy the essential rules on which the safety of every country depends. Hence every responsible nation shares a vital interest in standing firm against him and imposing a price when those rules are broken.
Our allies have not been deterred by the Russian state’s usual tactics for avoiding international pressure.
Sure enough, the Kremlin began pumping out a deluge of lies and propaganda almost as soon as Sergei and Yulia Skripal had entered intensive care.
So far, my colleagues at the Foreign Office have identified 21 separate theories broadcast by the Russian state media, ranging from the sublime (Skripal overdosed because he was addicted to Novichok) to the absurd (America did it to “destabilise the world”) to the offensive (the UK poisoned its own city to spoil the World Cup).
The Foreign Office has responded by trying to highlight the Kremlin’s ever-mutating web of lies. We are not rushing to rebut every absurdity; our goal is to expose the methodology whereby the Russian state seeks to flood the media with an endless tide of propaganda, often consisting of contradictory or obviously ridiculous theories, but all designed to conjure doubt from thin air and undermine the very notion of objective truth.
There was a time when this might have been effective, but I am struck by how no-one is fooled any more. On the contrary, every country in the EU has explicitly endorsed our assessment of the Kremlin’s responsibility for what happened in Salisbury.
And I believe that yesterday was a moment when the cynicism of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine was exposed for all to see.
The Western alliance took decisive action, even in the face of possible retaliation. And Britain’s partners across the world came together and united against the Kremlin’s reckless ambitions.
