Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss said the U.K. should have provided more aid to Ukraine earlier to try to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion order.
Truss made her remarks in a Monday speech in the House of Commons.
"But let us all be honest: we should have done more earlier," she said. "The reason why Putin took the action that he did was that he did not believe that we would follow through. And we did not take him at his word. As far back as 2007, at the Munich security conference, Putin made his intentions very clear. He has talked on many occasions about creating a greater Russia. He took action, as we know, in Crimea and the Donbas, but we did not do enough.
"We let it pass; we collectively turned too much of a blind eye," Truss continued. "I am afraid to say that we — not just the United Kingdom, but Europe and the free world — also imported Russian gas and oil. We saw money flow in from Russia — money that was later to be used to buy the weapons that would be used against the Ukrainian people. We also failed to take action on defending Ukraine."
Truss resigned in October after just 49 days in office following a disastrous rollout of her tax-cut plan. Politico noted she is the U.K's shortest-serving prime minister.
The news outlet also pointed out she had been foreign secretary for Boris Johnson before taking over from him as prime minister.
"One year ago on Friday, I got a phone call, at 3:30 in the morning, from my private secretary at the Foreign Office telling me that Vladimir Putin had begun a whole-scale invasion into Ukraine," she said. "Air strikes and a land invasion were targeting cities across that country, including Kyiv. It was devastating news, but although it was devastating, it was not unexpected. We had been seeing for months the way in which troops were being amassed on the border of Ukraine. We had very good intelligence showing us exactly what Putin's plans had been."
During her speech, Truss also praised the Ukrainians for their courage in standing up to the Russians.
"From day one, we saw sheer bravery on the part of the Ukrainians defending their country. We saw an administration in Kyiv whom many people had expected to leave their posts — people expected [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and his cabinet to flee the country — but they did not; they stayed there. I remember being in a video conference that evening with the Defense Secretary, and our counterparts, who were not in Poland or the United States, but in Kyiv. They were defending their country and asking us for our help in what we could do."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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