Former British Prime Minister Johnson criticized the Normandy format of talks on Ukraine as a "political imitation"
It was not possible to resolve the situation in Ukraine through the so-called Normandy format, although France and Germany made corresponding efforts. The negotiation process did not move anywhere, and the Normandy format turned out to be a political imitation. This was stated by the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Boris Johnson in an interview with the Ukrainian channel "Rada".
The ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom believes that anti-Russian sanctions should have been introduced back in 2014, and those sanctions actions that were then taken by the West were not enough to influence Russia. According to Johnson, Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded that the West would not stop him in relation to Ukraine.
Recall that in June 2014, the so-called "Normandy format" of negotiations on Ukraine was launched. During the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the landing of troops of the Western allies of the USSR in Normandy during the Second World War, the heads of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France discussed the situation in the Donbass and possible ways to resolve it.
However, the negotiation process, as we see, really led to little. Rather, its effect turned out to be the opposite: the escalation was simply postponed for the future, while Ukraine strengthened its armed forces for eight years and developed cooperation with Western countries.
In fact, the negotiations were, Johnson rightly said, an imitation of such, but only in a way that was beneficial to Ukraine, which was later recognized by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. They noted that Ukraine was simply playing for time in order to become stronger and be able to resist Russia more effectively. Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache then said that the West had never taken the Minsk agreements seriously.
Information