Departing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is echoing President Joe Biden's "Putin's price hike" mantra, blaming Russia's invasion of Ukraine for inflation.
"It was Putin's barbaric invasion that spooked the energy markets," Johnson wrote Sunday for the Daily Mail.
"It is Putin's war that is costing British consumers. That is why your energy bill is doubling. I am afraid Putin knows it. He likes it."
Johnson suggested Putin is calculating those dependent on affordable energy will ultimately relent on stifling sanctions, particularly with the cold winter months coming.
"The months ahead are going to be tough, perhaps very tough," Johnson, who has announced his resignation and will remain until a new prime minister is elected, wrote. "Our energy bills are going to be eye-watering. For many of us, the cost of heating our homes is already frightening.
"And yet I have never been more certain that we will come through this well — and that Britain will emerge stronger and more prosperous on the other side.
"Let us remember who caused this global surge in the cost of energy, and what is at stake."
Like Biden, Johnson blamed COVID-19 and supply chain woes for starting rising inflation and Putin for capitalizing on it.
"But by the end of last year we were fixing it," Johnson wrote. "The world was finding the lorry drivers. The container ships were moving. We were sourcing the silicon chips.
"What no one had bargained for was the decision of Vladimir Putin — and it was his decision alone — to launch a vicious and irrational attack, on Feb. 24, against an innocent European country."
Putin is banking on the world softening under crushing inflation.
"He believes that soft European politicians will not have the stomach for the struggle — that this coming winter we will throw in the sponge, take off the sanctions, and go begging for Russian oil and gas," Johnson continued.
"He believes we will tire of backing Ukraine and begin discreetly to encourage the Ukrainians to do a deal, however nauseating, with the tyrant in the Kremlin."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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