The UK has not been as successful as France when it comes to negotiating with Russia because foreign secretary Liz Truss is telling the country “things it doesn’t want to hear”, according to Paul Scully.
More than 150,000 Russian troops are currently surrounding Ukraine in an act of aggression, seen by the West as a sign an invasion looms.
The small business minister was defending Truss amid a flurry of action from Paris over the weekend, when French president Emmanuel Macron managed to broker a last-minute summit between the US and Moscow – on the condition that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine.
Macron had spent the weekend calling world leaders in an “intense diplomatic drive” which could help reduce tensions on the Ukrainian border.
Speaking to Scully, Sky News’ Kay Burley pointed out: “Macron seems to be far more effective than we are.”
The small business minister said: “No, I don’t think that’s right.”
“Our foreign secretary was snubbed when she went to Moscow,” Burley said.
Scully claimed: “That’s because she’s saying things that aren’t palatable to the Russian foreign minister, things he doesn’t want to hear.”
Burley replied: “That’s diplomacy though. The French are doing it in a different way and getting much further.”
Scully said: “I think you have to say the good and the bad. You have to say the things they don’t want to hear but then you have to give people a way out. That’s diplomacy. You never cut their retreat.
“I hope therefore that both of those approaches, alongside the foreign secretary’s work with Poland and Ukraine and the prime minister being in the security conference in Munich will actually bear fruit and Vladimir Putin will actually come to see that it’s right to step back.”
He also promised that all the Nato countries are working together to diffuse the situation and encourage Putin to “step back” from the situation.
Truss’ frosty trip to Moscow was widely considered to be unsuccessful, with some critics believing the foreign secretary was there more for the photo opportunities and “Instagram diplomacy” than to negotiate.
During her visit Truss told Russia that Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, must not be “bullied” and Russia should prove it had “no plans” to act on Ukraine’s borders.
Her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, brutally dismissed her negotiation skills in a joint press conference, telling the media: “I’m honestly disappointed that what we have is a conversation between a dumb and a deaf person.
“It seems like we listen but don’t hear. At least, our most detailed explanations fell on unprepared soil.”
He even accused Truss of lacking basic geographical knowledge and said that he was not going to listen to a lecture, because “moralising is a road to nowhere”.