The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Russia bombs Ukraine, MPs get a pay rise and Tube staff strike

issue 05 March 2022

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Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia: ‘Never in all my study or memory of politics and international affairs have I seen so clear a distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and dark.’ He was speaking during a visit to the Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in London, where he lit a candle. He flew off to visit Poland and Estonia, and said he was worried that Vladimir Putin might ‘Grozny-fy’ Kiev, which would be ‘an unalterable moral humanitarian catastrophe’. Britain might take in 200,000 Ukrainian refugees after a scheme for close relatives of Ukrainians in the UK was widened to include other family members. Asked if she supported British citizens who might join an international legion defending Ukraine, Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said: ‘Absolutely, if people want to support that struggle I would support them.’ She did not mention the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, said forbade such action.

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