Slava Ukraini! This is no time to negotiate with Putin

We must decide for ourselves whether to side with Boris Johnson or Olaf Scholz over the former’s claim that Germany wanted Russia to crush Ukraine quickly to avoid a long conflict that would – as has happened – imperil Germany’s energy supplies. One can see why Mr Johnson made this undiplomatic assertion. He has ground to make up in the reputational stakes, not least if he hopes to convince another constituency party to parachute him into the safe seat he covets for the next election, on which his comeback plans depend: Uxbridge-les-deuxéglises looks shaky. And two things are indisputable: he was unequivocal in putting Britain behind Ukraine (which, the Germans might observe, proved a distraction from his own troubles), and Germany under Herr Scholz’s predecessor, Angela Merkel, built an unhealthily dependent relationship with Russia over energy supplies. That made the country a reluctant ally in the international fight against Putin’s tyranny.

Herr Scholz has snarled back at Mr Johnson like a wounded dachshund, predictably pointing to the ex-prime minister having had “his own relationship with the truth”. But for good measure Mr Johnson also castigated Italy for being over-reliant on Russian energy, and the French for being “in denial” about the conflict in the first place. This is only relevant because Russia’s historically two most successful generals – January and February – will soon return to the battlefield. If central Europe does endure power outages, the pressure to negotiate with the tyrant will grow. It must be resisted. Sitting in the dark occasionally, putting another jumper on or eating a ham sandwich instead of a roast might be tiresome, but it does not begin to compare with the horrors of Bucha or Mariupol. There can be no negotiations: we must do all we can to ensure Ukraine prevails, however uncomfortable we might get in the process.