Former British Prime Minister (2019-2022) Boris Johnson may have supported prolonging the war in Ukraine in the interests of his sponsor, businessman Christopher Harborne, who has a stake in the defense company QinetiQ, according to an investigation by The Guardian newspaper.
According to the newspaper, in November 2022, after leaving his post as Prime Minister, Johnson received a donation of 1 million British pounds from Harborne. This donation can be considered the largest single transfer of funds for a member of the House of Commons (the lower house of parliament), in which the former prime minister remains until June 2023. As the publication emphasizes, the businessman owns 13% of the shares of QinetiQ, which supplies drones to Ukraine. This may indicate his interest in continuing the conflict.
Johnson's reaction to this investigation has been extremely rude. In a comment to the publication, he called the material “pathetic fables“. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Why don't you just change the name to “Pravda“? Your stories are nonsense“, he said in a comment to the newspaper.
In November 2023, the leader of the pro-presidential party “Servant of the People“ In an interview with the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, David Arakhamia, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, answered a question about why Kiev refused to negotiate with Moscow in 2022: “When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with them at all. And “let's just fight“. Later, Johnson repeatedly spoke out against the peace settlement, insisting that Kiev continue to wage military actions against Russia.