British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced humiliation in Poland after a female activist in Ukraine, Daria Kaleniuk, Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, confronted him at close range at a press conference in Warsaw, Poland. Kaleniuk slammed Johnson for talking much and not doing more to help Ukraine and save the country from the Russian military onslaught. She decried that people are being killed, mothers are losing their children, yet Boris Johnson came to Poland to “say he can do nothing.”
Johnson visited Poland to hold talks with the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The furious Daria Kaleniuk, Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Ukrainian advocacy organization, confronted Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a press conference Warsaw, standing face-to-face expressing her bitterness and the helplessness of her people back home in the war carnage. She chided Johnson of being afraid of Russia by visiting Poland and not visiting Ukraine, the war zone, and standing there doing nothing, referring the British prime minister of Ukrainian citizens in UK not facing sanctions.
“You are saying Ukraine should shoot down Russian war planes but you’re not doing much to help Ukraine because you’re afraid! You are coming to Poland. You are not coming to Kyiv … because you are afraid.
“You’re talking about more sanctions, prime minister. But Roman Abramovich is not sanctioned. He is in London. His children are not in the bombardments. “His children are there, in London,” Daria Kaleniuk declared, facing Boris Johnson directly.
Kaleniuk cried out, “Ukrainian women and Ukrainian children are in deep fear because of bombs and missiles which are going from the sky. Ukrainian people are desperately asking for the rights to protect our sky. We are asking for a no-fly zone.”
She also demanded that Britain could do more to target Russian oligarchs in UK, the “Londongrad” who made London home.
A humiliated and shocked Johnson, however, insisted they may not enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine considering the consequences.
“I just want to say I am acutely conscious that there is not enough we can do as the U.K. government to help in the way that you want. I’ve got to be honest about that,” Johnson insisted. The British prime minister explained why UK cannot subscribe to the no-fly zone. According to Johnson, “unfortunately, the implication of that is that the U.K. would be engaged in shooting down Russian planes, engaged in direct combat with Russia. That’s not something we can do, or we have envisaged.”
The British parliament, albeit condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but argued that Britain cannot send troops because UK does not military pact with Ukraine.
Neither the US nor NATO could join the war directly to protect Ukraine against Russian invasion, but they have been providing assistance in supply of arms, logistics and other interventions to reinforce Ukraine in the war.