UK troops may guard Ukraine's border under peace deal, says Johnson

British troops should take part in securing Ukraine's border as part of a potential peace agreement, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview with The Telegraph.

Responsibility for guarding any future ceasefire line in Ukraine should be handed over to a multinational group of European peacekeeping forces, according to the former prime minister.

"I don't think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians. But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you're going to want to have multinational European peace-keeping forces monitoring the border [and] helping the Ukrainians. I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British," Johnson stated.

He stressed that security guarantees for Ukraine must be clear and effective to prevent another Russian attack. Johnson argued that NATO's Article 5, which has maintained peace in Europe for 80 years, offers the best guarantee. "It's the reason the Baltic states are in NATO. It's the reason that the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Finns and the Swedes are now in NATO," he said.

The former prime minister also highlighted the UK's moral obligation to Ukraine, referencing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

"We collaborated with the Russians in 1994 and deprived the Ukrainians of nuclear weapons, which would have protected them from the horror of what's happening now. If they'd kept a nuclear deterrent, they would not be being murdered in their beds by Putin right now. We were part of that. We signed the memorandum. We're morally responsible for their predicament," Johnson emphasized.