‘Ukraine-Russia conflict could last for many years’ says Liz Truss

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Sunday, 27 February, warned that the Russia-Ukraine crisis could last a “number of years”, and the world requires to be prepared for Moscow “to seek to use even more harmful weapons.”

“I worry this will be a long haul, could be a number of years,” said Liz Truss.

“Russia have strong forces, and we know that the people of Ukraine are fearless, and they are focused to stand up for their sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they are committed to fight,” she further said.

The minister said that intelligence showed that the Ukrainian army was “continuing to fight Russian advances” and that there had not been “notable changes” overnight.

But she warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could possibly deploy more dangerous weapons.

“However, Putin must be aware that the International Criminal Court is already witnessing what is happening in Ukraine, and there will be severe consequences for him personally,” she added.

On Saturday, 26 February, Western partners decided on a new volley of financial sanctions against Russia over its attack in Ukraine, including the exclusion of many Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank system.

A senior United States official said that the partners also decided to impose restrictive efforts to control the Russian central bank from “using multinational financial transactions to prop up the ruble.”

The United Kingdom has supplied Ukraine with lethal defence weapons and applied sanctions to Kremlin-linked tycoons and businesses.

The foreign minister said Britain would resume to supply defence weapons but warned that the sanctions “will take time” to become effective. They could only work via their “hit list” of oligarchs as fast as the legal procedure permits them.

Boris Johnson, PM of UK, spoke to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky late Saturday, with the duo agreeing that the world needs to separate Russia “completely diplomatically and financially.”

Zelensky and Johnson also shared their “mutual worry” about Belarus’s role in Russia’s attack so far.