We didn’t do enough against Putin

Liz Truss has claimed that BRITAIN bypassed the capture of Mad Vlad by cutting spy numbers and defense spending after the Cold War.

The foreign minister said relations with the Russian President could never be restored – confessing that when it comes to defending the UK: “We were caught off guard”.

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And Ms. Truss stressed that war tyrants are on their way to the next Nato countries if we don’t take a hard line now.

In a strong plea to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of next week’s Spring Declaration, she made the case that huge support is needed for the UK to get ready for a possible war.

Ms Truss joined forces with Defense Secretary Ben Wallace to urge Boris Johnson to turn on the spending faucet after years of us allowing the Kremlin to flood the UK with fake news and lies.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in our lives and we have to do everything we can to stop it,” she said.

And she stressed the only tactic that worked for Putin was to show strength and keep hitting him where it hurt.

In his first major interview since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the Secretary of State:

• WATERPROOF Britain must do everything to arm the Ukrainians when President Volodymyr Zelensky begs us more weapons.
• LASHED lawyers threatened to sue the Government for hundreds of millions of pounds on behalf of the tycoons.
• VOWED our toughest sanctions ever is to throw Russia back to the communist era and freeze it.
• The ADMITTED Britons will pay for punishing Putin – but stopping him is worth it.

It comes as 370 other individuals, including families of oligarchs, were first threatened with sanctions last night in a day supposed to be for Putin’s friends.

Ms Truss praised the red tape emergency act from Lords, who prevented us from acting as quickly as the EU and US over fears wealthy friends could take ministers to court.

“We were able to act immediately without fear of being sued by these legal firms for huge damages,” she added.

And she warned: “If Putin doesn’t lose in Ukraine, he won’t stop there. We will see direct threats to countries, including NATO countries.

“The reality is we didn’t do enough against Putin in 2014 when he invaded Ukraine.

“Because of the failure to act then, we are now facing these very high costs, and the costs will only get worse.”

“The free world did not spend enough on defense after the Cold War. We were caught off guard.

“The State Department has abandoned our information unit and we have been overwhelmed by Russian disinformation. We have become too dependent on authoritarian regimes.”

Ms. Truss urged allies around the world to step up and praised Germany for splurging on them.

She mocked calls to give Putin a path to climb down and pull his tens of thousands of troops back to Ukraine, declaring: “The only thing that works is strength. We should not try to negotiate with Putin or try to give him a way out.

“The only thing we can do is be tougher on sanctions to cut off funding and be stronger in supporting Ukraine, providing it with what it needs to fight.

“Ukrainians are not only fighting for Ukraine, they are fighting for freedom and democracy. Consumers pay the price for the action we are taking.

“But the cost of not taking that action is much higher.”

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