Vladimir Putin is in “a total panic” about a revolution in Moscow which is why he is trying “so brutally to snuff out the flame of freedom in Ukraine”, Boris Johnson has said.
Condemning the “vicious and a barbarian attack on innocent civilians”, the prime minister drew a direct comparison with the actions of the Nazis under Adolf Hitler in the 1940s.
He also warned the Russian president would not stop at Ukraine, as he ushered in the “beginning of a new age of intimidation across the whole of Eastern Europe”.
If Mr Putin won in Ukraine, it would give “the green light for autocrats everywhere”, he added.
The Conservative leader made his comments in a typically forthright speech to his party’s spring conference in Blackpool, watched on by the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko.
He told Tory activists: “A tragedy continues to unfold in our European continent, a vicious and a barbarian attack on innocent civilians, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1940s.
“With every day that Ukraine’s heroic resistance continues, it is clear that Putin has made a catastrophic mistake.
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“And you have to ask yourself why he did it. Why did he decide to invade this totally innocent country?”
Dismissing the relationship with NATO, Mr Johnson said: “I think he was frightened of Ukraine for an entirely different reason.
“He was frightened of Ukraine, because in Ukraine, they have a free press and in Ukraine, they have free elections, and with every year that Ukraine progressed… he feared the Ukrainian example.
“And he feared the implicit reproach to himself because in Putin’s Russia, you get jailed for 15 years, just calling invasion, an invasion.
“And if you stand against Putin in an election, you get poisoned, or shot.
“It’s precisely because Ukraine and Russia have been so historically close, that he has been terrified of the effect of that Ukrainian model on him and on Russia.
“He has been in a total panic about the so-called colour revolution in Moscow itself, and that’s why he’s trying so brutally to snuff out the flame of freedom in Ukraine.
“That’s why it is so vital that he fails, because a victorious Putin will not stop in Ukraine and the end of freedom in Ukraine will mean the extinction of any hope of freedom in Georgia and then Moldova, it’ll mean the beginning of a new age of intimidation across the whole of Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
“If Putin succeeds in crushing Ukraine, it will be the green light for autocrats everywhere in the Middle East, in the Far East. This is a turning point for the world. It’s a moment of choice.”
