Boris Johnson’s statement at the Tory Party spring conference on Saturday comparing the Ukrainians fight for freedom with Brexit is an outrageous slur on the Ukrainian people who are fighting with immense courage against a merciless invader.

They are fighting for their freedom and for their right to join the European Union as a free and independent country - making Johnson’s comment all the more ironic and distasteful.

The EU has never been a threat to our freedom, after all we played a leading part and when we chose to leave they did not stop us. In fact the EU was founded in order to prevent war in Europe, it was and always has been a peace project. Johnson has no principles and would not fight for anything, he runs away.

Here is the man who hid in a fridge to avoid awkward questions from a reporter.

People throughout Europe are our friends and brothers. Our real enemy is Putin’s Russia, a country which has already been waging a cyber war against us for years and launched a biological attack on British soil.

The Russia Report which Johnson tried to suppress makes clear that the UK is a target for Russian misinformation. Despite government admission that there was Russian interference in the 2014 Scottish referendum and the 2019 general election it is incredulous that MI5’s very brief statement referred to in the Russia Report says that they did not investigate the Brexit referendum because they were never asked to look for evidence.

Putin has been planning and slowly implementing his invasion of Ukraine for years, first with the invasion of the Donbass region, then with the annexation of the Crimea and now with the full scale invasion. All along he has been playing the Tory party like a fiddle.

That is the true connection between Brexit and the Ukraine war and, if we survive this, I hope I live to see those politicians and others who have been complicit in Putin’s plans, by taking Russian money and turning a blind eye or worse, being brought to justice.

As for Putin only the Gates of Hell await. Slava Ukraini!

Steve Boyd

Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant