Dr Neil Winn talks to BBC Radio Leeds about the Ukraine crisis

Dr Winn spoke to Joel Mitchell, sitting in for Rima Ahmed, about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement in Commons regarding ‘evidence of war crimes’ in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Dr Winn said “War crimes are always very grave acts in any given war or any given situation, and you can already see, for example, that there have been massive sanctions put on by the European Union, the United States, by the UK and other countries. As well as the banning of cultural events and the withdrawing of Russia from team sports events... people are taking this deadly seriously.”

Dr Winn commented that the Kremlin’s rhetoric justifying invasion “equating the ‘liberation’ of Ukraine to liberating Ukraine from a form of Nazism” was not well received by the West. “It went down very badly. We can see there is a hugely concerted effort to push back with economic sanctions.”

When asked whether he saw the UK imposing further measures, for example a no-fly zone, Dr Winn responded that such action could result in general war “because Russia will see that as an aggressive act by the West and will react accordingly. And we don’t know what the Kremlin will do. I think the likelihood of nuclear war is quite low, but the rhetoric is still there, so we have to take these threats very seriously.”

Listen to the full interview (segment begins at 03:09:43)