Ukraine crisis: Boris Johnson says there is ‘extreme danger to the world’ from potential Russia invasion – live | World news

It is unacceptable that EuropeIs facing a conflict over an issue that’s not even on the agenda? German chancellor Olaf Scholz said – underlining RussianVladimir Putin, president of Russia, had no reason not to believe that the entry was fraudulent. UkraineTo NatoMembership is possible.

Scholz said he did not understand why Russia had decided to make Ukraine’s potential membership of Nato as a casus belli since the issue was not even “pending” or on the table. “It will not happen the next time. It won’t happen in the near future. Putin knows that,” he said.

He said that the West must be open about it, while on the other side the EU and NATO cannot deny the principle of their organisations not being closed to new members.

Referencing the chances of new members joining Nato he predicted “there will not be too many movements in the future” pointing out that in principle the USThe site is open for new members. Puerto RicoIt was not possible.

Scholz has landed himself in trouble with some Nato partners in the past by speaking frankly that Ukraine’s chances of joining Nato are remote. Scholz, who is largely educated in economic affairs, has been thrust into a huge geostrategic crises only four months into his job.

He stated that Germany won’t be foolhardy in calling for additional diplomacy to end the war in Europe. He said “there is nothing that justifies the deployment of well over 100,000 soldiers on Ukraine’s borders.

Scholz described Putin’s story that there was a genocide in Donbas as ridiculous, adding he refused to take seriously Putin’s historic claims that Russia and Ukraine are one people. He said if he took Putin’s claims seriously there would be little reason for optimism, but he did not.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Scholz said he urged “as much diplomacy as possible”, but he would not accept the Russian imposition of changed borders. “No country should be the backyard of another”, he said

He stated that western actions didn’t give Putin any reason for claiming he was threatened or NATO. This revealed that during his talks last week in Moscow, Putin continued to cite Nato aggression in Balkans. Scholz claimed he had rejected this claim.

Scholz also stated that he had warned Putin that he would commit a serious error if Ukraine invaded. He told Putin “any further violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty would come at a high price in political, economic and geostrategic terms”. His watchword , he said, was “as much diplomacy as possible without being naive – that is what we strive for”.

He added the West “had to have the confidence to differentiate between untenable demands and legitimate security concerns” by which he meant Nato should be prepared to negotiate with Russia over arms controls, and transparency, but not rolling back the borders of Nato.

He defended Germany’s decision not to send arms to Ukraine saying Germany is the largest supplier of economic help to Ukraine, adding “it would be nice that if more countries that acknowledged this fact in private would do so in public”.

Referring to the rise of China he said a new multilateral order is inevitable and welcome, but only so long as it is based on a willingness to cooperate with “everyone even strong play by the rules”.

Democracy, he insisted, was “not an exclusive western aspiration but a deeply universal human one”.