Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is an “act of madness”.
In an interview on CTV’s Question Period that aired Sunday, Blair said Putin does not appear to be the same man he met in the early 2000s who wanted “good relations” with the West.
“It changed over time, but in the times that I knew, although it had become much more brutal, it was also still very calculating,” the former world leader said. “And the real anxiety that people have about his behavior regarding Ukraine is that it is such a colossal miscalculation. I mean to think that Ukraine or the Ukrainians would agree to be subjected to a Putin dictatorship.”
However, Blair said he believes Putin “is still rational in the sense that he is making decisions and he is running this campaign” but that the war he has provoked is an “act of madness because, by the way, whatever happens … Russia is going to come out weaker.”
Twelve weeks after Russia’s assault on Ukraine, troops are shifting their focus to targeting specific regions of eastern Ukraine after facing defeat near the capital of kyiv. However, Russia claimed to have captured Mariupol on Friday, which would be its biggest victory yet if confirmed by Ukraine.
Asked how this war would end and whether Putin would consider tactical nukes if he was cornered, Blair said that while it is difficult to predict, it is “unlikely” due to possible retaliation from the West.
“I can’t tell you exactly what the Western response would be, but it would be very significant,” he said. “Now, I think in the first few weeks of this conflict, we could have been able to bring [the war] to an end on a relatively simple basis. The problem now is that the Ukrainians will not agree to give up any of their territory or even push it back to where it was before February 24.”
Blair, like other observers, argues that the West’s primary role is to financially suffocate Russia while ensuring that Ukraine is equipped militarily.
Canada has done both, recently announcing a ban on Russian imports of vodka, caviar, and diamonds, the export of cigarettes and spirits to Russia, and further sanctions on 14 oligarchs.
On emerging threats to the global world order, Blair said democracies should take solace in the fact that the actions of autocracies and dictatorships in recent years have exposed significant weaknesses.
He pointed out not only the ramifications of Putin’s war, but also China’s handling of the COVID-19 virus and the lasting economic impact being felt today.
Going forward, Blair said democratic nations have to work to make the system more “effective.”
“Honestly, I think the best way to do it is that we have to re-establish a strong center in Western politics, center left, center, right… That’s when politics comes [battling] between populism on the left versus populism on the right, you end up with incoherence, inconsistency, and that has been the weakness of the West for the last decade or so,” he said.
With an archive from The Associated Press.
Reference-www.ctvnews.ca