Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky that “he hoped Ukraine could resist” in a call early on Thursday morning.
The Prime Minister’s words of encouragement follow Russia’s President Vladimir Putin having announced a “special military operation… to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine” and sent forces into Russia-aligned separatist republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Details of the attack are still emerging, but explosions have been reported in cities including the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv (Kiev), Kharkiv (Kharkov), and Odesa (Odessa), far beyond the separatist republics in the country’s east.
“The Prime Minister said he was appalled by the unfolding events in Ukraine,” confirms an official readout of the conversation between Johnson and Zelensky published by the British government.
“The Ukrainian President updated the Prime Minister on the attacks taking place, and the Prime Minister said the West would not stand by as President Putin waged his campaign against the Ukrainian people,” it continued, adding that Johnson had “said he hoped Ukraine could resist and that Ukraine and its people were in the thoughts of everyone in the United Kingdom people during this dark time.”
In a social media post, Johnson further accused Putin of having “chosen a path of bloodshed and destruction” and vowed that Britain and its allies would “respond decisively” to his “unprovoked attack”.
This story is developing…