Thanks to the Ukraine crisis, the Munich Security Conference has taken on a new importance

The gathering will be an attempt by the west and the others to remind Russia’s Vladimir Putin that the world is watching, writes Sean O’Grady

Kamala Harris bound for Munich on Thursday

The “whiff of Munich” – as the defence secretary Ben Wallace described recent attempts to restrain Russian aggression – may be about to turn much sweeter.

Wallace’s reference was to the futile appeasement of Nazi Germany in the name of peace at a conference in Munich, the year before the Second World War. Now, though, world leaders are meeting at a very different event, the Munich Security Conference, in a fresh attempt to talk their way to peace over the Ukraine crisis.

The conference is being attended by representatives of Nato states and other friendly states such as Sweden and Finland, plus Australia, India and Japan. That is in addition to a more circumspect China. Around 70 nations will be represented one way or the other: There will be no Russian attendance. The US vice president, Kamala Harris, and secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will attend, as will chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany – and Boris Johnson says he will be there, hoping to “unite the west”.