By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON (AA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin underestimated Ukrainians’ “passionate desire” to defend their country and the unity of the Western allies, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday.
Speaking alongside Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Warsaw, where he is on a visit, Johnson told a press conference that the "tragedy" playing out in Ukraine is "worse" than many predicted.
"There is an unfolding disaster in our European continent," he said, speaking just a few hundred kilometers (miles) from the border with war-torn Ukraine.
Johnson said Putin has "fatally underestimated two things."
"The first is the passionate desire of the Ukrainian people to defend and protect their own country, their belief in their sovereign right to defend themselves, and I pay tribute by the way to the leadership and courage that is being shown by (President) Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” he said.
"I think that Vladimir Putin has also underestimated the unity and the resolve of the West and of the rest of the world. We will keep up the economic pressure,” he added, calling it “probably one of the most powerful packages of sanctions advanced against any country in the last few decades.”
"I'm more convinced than ever, as this hideous conflict progresses, that Putin will fail and I believe that Putin must fail, and that we will succeed in preserving and protecting a sovereign and democratic Ukraine. That is our joint objective."
On Tuesday, Johnson is also due to visit Estonia, another ex-Soviet state.