U.Ok. Protection Minister Grant Shapps has instructed the Sunday Instances in a Dec. 24 interview that the West “can’t afford” to lose the battle in Ukraine and that there could be “extreme penalties” if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wins.
“If we enable Putin to win this battle by dragging it out, and he someway wins it by exhausting everyone else, then we are going to endure the results. And the results could be extremely extreme for Europe, for Britain, for the world,” Shapps stated, as quoted by the media.
“And the explanation I say that’s as a result of we all know what occurs when dictators march throughout Europe. We all know what occurs when others have a look at a weak spot or what they understand to be a weak spot, and that might have implications within the Indo-Pacific or elsewhere,” he stated. “So we are able to actually not afford to not win this battle.”
Shapps, who beforehand served because the U.Ok. power secretary, was appointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Aug. 31, changing the outgoing Protection Minister Ben Wallace.
Based on the Sunday Instances, Schapps stated the “expenditure on protection throughout the West, together with within the U.Ok., is inadequate to see off the specter of a resurgent Russia.”
The UK spent 2.3 billion British kilos (about $2.9 billion) on protection help to Ukraine final yr and has dedicated the identical quantity in 2023.
Shapps instructed the Sunday Instances that offering help to Ukraine “isn’t some type of charity strategy.”
“I do know it’s usually referred to as gifting … but it surely’s really in our personal bloody pursuits,” he stated.
In September, Shapps traveled to Kyiv to satisfy President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It was his second go to to Kyiv and his first in his new position as protection minister. Along with assembly with Zelensky, Shapps additionally participated in talks with different Ukrainian officers, together with his Ukrainian counterpart, Protection Minister Rustem Umerov.
Again then, he additionally emphasised that the help of the U.Ok. for Ukraine “stays unwavering.”
Learn additionally: Dutch minister: ‘If you happen to don’t cease Russia now, they’ll go additional. It’s not simply Ukraine’
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