Tory MP Bob Seely tells GB News Putin's move into Ukraine might not be invasion

A Conservative Party MP has told GB News that President Vladimir Putin's move to Ukraine may not be an invasion.

Boris Johnson warned this morning that Putin appears to want "a full-scale invasion” of Ukraine, as he vowed to swiftly introduce the “first barrage” of sanctions against Russia.

Moscow ordered troops into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, allegedly to carry out “peacekeeping” duties.

The dramatic escalation came after Putin recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent states.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid went one step further, saying that from Moscow’s actions “you can conclude that the invasion of Ukraine has begun”.

But Tory member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Bob Seely cautioned: "I would be very, very careful before we oversell what’s happened.

"It’s pretty serious there’s no question about that.

"De Jure, it is an invasion, de facto it is not an invasion because Russia annexed these territories in 2014.

"When people say they’re separate republics - they’re not.

"The commanders there are Russian soldiers, a lot of the troops, a lot of the paramilitaries are Russian soldiers, minus the insignia.

"All the jobs were appointed by the Kremlin. The Russians annexed this territory and it is annexed by Russia in all but name since 2014.

"To say they’re both independent is wrong, to say that Russia is now invading Ukraine territory while technically accurate, is not actually the case."

Boris Johnson said there had been a failure to stand up to Russia in 2014 when Crimea was annexed.

“We have got to recognise that we were not tough enough and in the end we didn’t do enough, as Europeans, to wean ourselves off Russian hydrocarbons, off Russian oil and gas,” the Prime Minister said.

The volatility in gas prices in Europe was a “consequence of that failure”, he said.

“We have got to make sure that we cut the umbilicus, we snip the drip feed into our bloodstream from Nord Stream."