Former UK prime minister John Major has launched a scathing attack on the US for “cuddling” up to Vladimir Putin.
The new Trump administration sent shockwaves around the world this week when it announced it was planning to negotiate a peace deal for the Ukraine war.
Before talks have even begun, the US has hinted that it wants to give in to most of Putin’s demands, including giving him a fifth of Ukraine’s land and preventing Ukraine from joining Nato in the near future.
This marked a significant departure from the west’s previously united approach to the Ukraine war.
New US vice-president JD Vance then dealt an even heavier blow by making a blistering address to Europe at the Munich Security Conference, accusing the continent of abandoning its old values like free speech.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, ex-Conservative PM Major condemned the US’s bulldozer approach.
He said: “It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time they are cuddling Mr Putin.
“In Mr Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear, or die, or flee the country, or on a statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow.
“To lecture the west about democracy seems really rather odd, he should be doing that in Moscow, or perhaps even Beijing.”
Major also lashed out at the White House’s apparent strategy to give Putin exactly what he wanted when he first invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“Consider what happens if Russia can claim a win,” the former prime minister said.
“China is going to notice that, and so will the world, and so will every tinpot dictator around the world.
“If America is not to stand behind its allies in the way the world has previously seen, then we are moving into a wholly different, and in my view, rather more dangerous world.”
“The vice-president’s speech at the Munich conference – a rather unlikely venue for the speech he actually made – the political signal was obvious, and misguided, I think, in the middle of an election in Germany.”
He also pointed out hundreds of thousands of American servicemen died during World War 2.
Major then criticised how Vance had arranged a meeting with the far-right party AfD while in Munich.
“The vice-president goes to Munich, and ignores his host Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz, and arranges meetings with the leader of the most far-right party,” Major said.
“That’s not what we expect from the foremost nation of the free world, it’s certainly not statesmanship, and it potentially gives off very dangerous signals.”