Trump would have stopped Putin from invading Ukraine, says former UK PM Boris Johnson

Exclusive interview: On the eve of Boris Johnson’s memoir being published, the former British leader gives his take on the US election

Donald Trump would have stopped Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told The Telegraph in an exclusive interview.
The “sheer unpredictability” of Trump would have scared off the Russian president, if the Republican had won the 2020 election, Mr. Johnson said.
In an unusual intervention in the 2024 presidential race, the former UK leader offered his full support to Trump’s claim that the war would never have happened under his watch (as seen below).
Mr. Johnson, who remains one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s most vocal supporters, also argued that America needed “a strong leader,” in what will be seen as a sideswipe against Kamala Harris.
In the exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Mr. Johnson insisted Trump would curb Putin’s expansionist plans, by blocking the Russian president’s ambition of “re-launching an evil empire of Moscow.”
The comments will anger the Biden-Harris administration and threaten a diplomatic rift between the UK and Kyiv.
Although Mr. Johnson was forced out of power after three years in 10 Downing Street – the British equivalent of the White House – following a series of scandals, he remains a persuasive figure on the world stage.
He was the first Western leader to meet President Zelensky in the aftermath of the invasion in February 2022 (below) and has made a number of trips to the war-torn country since, both in and out of power.
Mr. Johnson told The Telegraph: “One of the virtues of Trump is his sheer unpredictability. From the Kremlin’s point of view there was a real risk that Trump would have construed an attack on a European country as an affront to America and to the world order, and might have come down hard.
“That’s one of the reasons why I look at how he actually behaved on foreign affairs and I contrast it with what people say about him.”
Mr. Johnson highlighted Trump’s response to an attack on the UK in 2018 when Putin dispatched agents to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, by deploying military-grade nerve agent Novichok in the Wiltshire town of Salisbury in the heart of England.
He also said Trump had stood up to Syria and to Iran and had armed Ukraine with Javelin missiles in their fight against Russian separatists in the wake of the 2014 invasion of the Donbas region.
Mr. Johnson said: “He expelled 60 Russian spies [after the Salisbury poisonings]. He was much tougher on Syria than the Democrat administrations. He was tougher on the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and then he gave the Ukrainians the Javelin missile.”
Last week, Trump caused alarm when he told President Zelensky on a visit to the U.S. that he had a “very good relationship with President Putin.” Ukraine, along with NATO, is deeply concerned that a Trump victory could turn off the tap of billions of dollars of support given by the U.S. to Kyiv.
But Mr. Johnson, who was born in New York, said: “It’s very, very important that we understand that Ukraine’s fight is absolutely existential for freedom and democracy in Europe and if Ukraine goes down, it is an absolute catastrophe. And he [Trump] understands that.
“I don’t think that he will want to go down in history as the guy who launched his second presidential term not by making America great but by making the Soviet Union great again. Or by re-launching the evil empire of Moscow. I don’t think he is going to want to do that.”
Mr. Johnson added: “All human institutions require a leader. In the world, America is the leader. And in my view, the world is a happier, more prosperous place when you have a strong America and a strong leader, and when, when people feel that some sort of order is being maintained, okay?”
He said he had spoken to both Trump and to President Zelensky “quite recently,” but the details of those conversations are not known.
In the run-up to the election, Mr. Zelensky has courted both the Democratic and Republican camps to secure their long-term support for Ukraine.
However, Mr. Johnson’s intervention could be seen as a hindrance for the Ukrainian leader by inflaming tensions between the two U.S. election candidates.
The insistence that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East would never have happened under Trump’s watch have been a common refrain of the former president’s campaign.
Trump has said in the past that he had a plan to end the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours – although he has never revealed what that is – and warned that if he loses the election “that the war will never end, and will phase into World War III.”
In recent days, Trump has rowed back on his claim he can end the war that quickly but now said it would end – if he becomes president – in the time between winning the election on November 5 and the inauguration at the end of January.
Trump has repeatedly accused President Biden and Vice President Harris of embroiling the U.S. in a costly conflict, a theme that he believes will deliver him votes in the key swing states. At the end of last month, Trump told a rally: “Biden and Kamala got us into this war in Ukraine, and now they can’t get us out.”
In the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was also adamant that it was no coincidence that the Trump presidency between 2016 and 2020 had been free of “major conflict.”
Mr. Vance told a watching audience of 40 million: “When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out? The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was president.”
Recent polling has suggested nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia “for as long as it takes,” while 39 percent want American support to be withdrawn within two years.
Ms. Harris has accused Trump of being open to accepting demands from Putin for control over parts of Ukraine in return for ending the war.
During their recent meeting in Washington, D.C., Ms. Harris told Mr. Zelensky that “some in my country” would pressure Kyiv to give up its territory to Russia in exchange for a peace deal.
“These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”
During her presidential debate with Trump, Ms. Harris mocked the former president’s standing on the world stage.
In stinging remarks she said: “I have traveled the world as the vice president of the United States, and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom have worked with you, and they say you’re a disgrace.”
Unleashed by Boris Johnson will be published by William Collins on 10th October (£30); books.telegraph.co.uk