Boris Johnson visits Defense Forces positions in Zaporizhzhia sector of front
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the positions of the 65th Brigade on the Zaporizhzhia sector of the front line.
According to Ukrinform, Serhii Tomilenko, head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, reported this on Facebook and posted related photos.
“I can finally publish exclusive photos from Boris Johnson’s trip to the front. Today, the British newspaper Daily Mail is publishing an extensive report by Boris himself—a man who began his career as a journalist—from the Zaporizhzhia sector. He visited the positions of the 65th Brigade,” Tomilenko emphasized.
According to the head of the Journalists' Union, he learned about this secret frontline assignment of the well-known politician and former British prime minister from Daily Mail war correspondent Richard Pendlebury, whom he met in London last month at the Media Forum.
As the head of the NUJU noted, Pendlebury had just returned from Ukraine with photographer Jamie Weisman and recounted that Johnson had insistently asked the Daily Mail’s frontline team to organize such a trip to the front lines.
“We agreed: to hold off on the photos and publish them simultaneously with the release of the article in the newspaper. Since the war around Iran had just escalated, the publication was postponed. And now that moment has arrived,” Tomilenko noted.
According to him, Johnson wrote in the Daily Mail about Zaporizhzhia: “Driving along the city’s wide boulevards, I sensed its potential and the wealth that awaits its return. Chevrolet had a factory here as far back as the 1930s. The dam was built by the same American engineers who constructed the Hoover Dam. ‘One day, I hope and believe, this American-Ukrainian partnership will be restored.’”
The former British prime minister also wrote about a soldier with the call sign Coconut—a drone pilot who killed 434 Russians, suffered a horrific injury from a tank shell, refused amputation, and returned to fight.
In addition, Johnson spoke about Yurii, a ping-pong coach who goes out into the field at night with his men and shoots at drones with a 1917 Browning machine gun, and 24-year-old communications officer Dasha from Kramatorsk.
“By the way,” Tomilenko emphasized, “it was during that London meeting with Richard that I gave him a copy of the frontline newspaper Zorya from the Kharkiv region for Boris—the very same one that editor Vasyl Myroshnyk delivers every week to villages a few kilometers from the front line. Richard called this route ‘one of the most dangerous newspaper routes in the world.’ Boris took the newspaper in his hands and acknowledged that Vasyl’s work is impressive.”
According to the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Johnson also emphasized that after 48 hours on the front lines, he is more convinced than ever that “the Ukrainians will win. One day they will get rid of Putin’s orcs, and this beautiful, generous country will be free.”
As reported by Ukrinform, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin still does not believe or is not yet convinced that the West considers it an extremely important strategic goal for Ukraine to become a free and independent European country.