Ukraine: Boris Johnson tells Volodymyr Zelensky UK will do more to help

Boris Johnson has told President Volodymyr Zelensky that the UK will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia.

The prime minister said he had spoken to the Ukrainian president by telephone on Friday morning.

He said he vowed to stand with Ukraine at a time when its people were "facing such horror with such courage".

Mr Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky: "We know that we must do more to help. I pledge to you that we will."

And he said he had told the president that he knew Ukraine was fighting "not just for your lives and your homes but for the cause of democracy and freedom itself".

Mr Johnson was speaking at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, where he told delegates that the UK had "led the way" in providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

But he added: "I think that we all feel that we can, and we will, do more around the world.

"We will do more with defensive weapons to help our Ukrainian friends against these pitiless bombardments.

"We will do more to tighten the vice around Putin's economy - and with every day that the slaughter and the inhuman behaviour of Putin's war machine continues, I think that the resolve of the world to do more is growing and I am more than ever convinced that Putin will fail".

Mr Johnson said Russia had "fatally underestimated" both the resolve of the Ukrainians to fight and the strength of western unity.

But he said it was vital that the world now started to wean itself off dependence on Russian oil and gas, and called for a national and international effort to "double down" on wind, tidal, solar and nuclear energy.

He said it was "crazy" to talk of shutting down the UK's domestic oil and gas production if it meant buying oil and gas at a "vast mark-up" from Russia.

But he stressed that the UK was still committed to reaching a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Mr Johnson also said it was "incredible" that the SNP still wanted to get rid of the UK's nuclear weapons despite Mr Putin's "sabre-rattling".

The prime minister's speech came just two months after Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross publicly urged him to quit over Downing Street parties during lockdown, saying has position had become "untenable".

Mr Ross withdrew his call for Mr Johnson to resign last week, saying that the sole focus should currently be on the war in Ukraine.

The two men shook hands on stage, with the prime minister later paying tribute to Mr Ross's record as party leader in his speech.