British PM Johnson in Warsaw: there will be bloodshed if Russia invades Ukraine

British and Polish PMs Boris Johnson and Mateusz Morawiecki visited British soldiers at the headquarters of the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade.

"Were Russia to be so foolish to make the catastrophic mistake of invading any part of Ukraine, the Ukrainian army, which themselves number about 200,000 maybe 150,000 in reserve, they will fight, and there will be bloodshed and I think everybody in Russia must understand that," Johnson said.

"I think Putin, the Kremlin, should understand that if they want less NATO on their western borders, as it were, this is entirely the wrong way to go about it," he added.

"There has got to be room for a conversation with the Kremlin about what they are doing, it cannot be sensible for them continually to threaten Ukraine with 130,000 troops, there has to be a way out of this. It would be a disaster for them, it would be a disaster for Russia, it would be a disaster for the world, if they were to invade," Johnson underscored.

Mateusz Morawiecki thanked Johnson for sending troops to the country.

"Great Britain showed great evidence of solidarity with Ukraine, with Poland, and with the entire eastern part of NATO. Thanks a lot for that. Thank you very much for sending troops. For being so involved here and being so involved in the security of NATO's eastern flank. The political goal of Putin is to break up NATO, so we must show how coherent we are because we are coherent. We have a great understanding of the tensions on NATO's eastern flank," Morawiecki said.

Morawiecki called on Germany to ensure the Nord Stream 2 line would not be used "as an element of blackmail" by Russia.

"Ladies and gentlemen, when the point of reference is an imperial policy, everything can become a tool of aggression: the gas pipelines, migrants, and the internet. And that's what we're experiencing today. The Northern Gas Pipeline (Nord Stream 2) - we call on our German neighbours to ensure as soon as possible that this gas pipeline will not be used as an element of blackmail," Poland's prime minister said.

Russia held military exercises in Belarus and the Black Sea following its troop buildup near Ukraine, with tensions remaining high. Ukraine also staged war games, but leaders on all sides signalled they hoped diplomacy could still prevail in what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Europe's biggest security crisis for decades.

Russia, which has more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders, denies Western accusations that it may be planning to invade its former Soviet neighbour though it says it could take unspecified "military-technical" action unless demands are met.