Boris Johnson has not been invited to Kyiv

Downing Street announced that despite reportedly being desperate to visit the warzone, Boris Johnson hasn’t been invited to visit war-ravaged Kyiv.

No 10 told reporters that the Prime Minister would consider travelling to the besieged metropolis, but no offer had been received from president Volodymyr Zelensky.

It came after Tory chairman Oliver Dowden insisted the Prime Minister had a genuine emotional bond with the suffering of the Ukrainian people and wanted to experience what it was like on the ground.

The comments, in an interview with LBC, came despite security fears over Boris Johnson’s obvious wish to visit Kyiv for face to face talks with Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters that they would clearly consider any invite should it be made, but there were no plans to travel there now, and it was said that the Prime Minister speaks to President Volodymyr Zelensky on an almost daily basis and that they were doing everything they could, and any requests that were made to continue playing a coordinating role, which they feel is essential to helping Ukraine.

He said President Volodymyr Zelensky hadn’t, at this time, requested the Prime Minister visit Kyiv.

The prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic made a trip to the Ukrainian capital last week.

Boris Johnson has been having almost daily calls with the president, which insiders told a newspaper outlet have often been moving and left Boris Johnson moist around the eyes.

The UN’s refugee agency said about 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the attack started, with millions more forced out of their homes staying in the country.

Mr Dowden, who serves in Cabinet, said that he believed the Prime Minister was desperate to go to Ukraine and has throughout the conflict felt a real, as the British people have done, connection with the suffering of the Ukrainian people and a need for the West to unite in standing up to this threat from Russia which has been exposed to Ukraine.

Pressed on why Boris Johnson needed to travel to the war zone rather than talking to Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone, Mr Dowden said that he believed that it was both to see what was going happening on the ground and that it was significantly different speaking to someone on the phone versus seeing it in practice, and that no decision had been taken in regard to this, and that it was to experience what was happening there and to see what was happening to the people on the ground.

Or perhaps Boris Johnson is just desperate to do some thumbs up in a jacket and helmet for a photo opportunity without any regard for the danger he will put other people in, and perhaps he shouldn’t be allowed near the place, and if he is permitted to go, all he will be doing is a rotund Frank Spencer show, giving the people of Kyiv a thumbs up, with his roaring Churchillian address.

Volodymyr Zelensky has enough to deal with, let alone having to worry about Boris Johnson getting in the way, and Boris should just continue with his phone calls instead, and let’s face it, who needs a useless sack of blubber, who’s desperate enough to attach himself to anyone’s wagon in a war zone? It’s not a circus Boris, it’s a war, and Boris Johnson needs to stick to his own playpen.

And I’m pretty sure we don’t need to see Boris Johnson act out his boyhood fantasies of wearing camouflage or doing the cringeworthy elbow bumps.