U.K. Defense Minister Grant Shapps has told the Sunday Times in a Dec. 24 interview that the West “cannot afford” to lose the war in Ukraine and that there would be “severe consequences” if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wins. “If we allow Putin to win this war by dragging it out, and he somehow wins it by exhausting everybody else, then we will suffer the consequences. And the consequences would be incredibly severe for Europe, for Britain, for the world,” Shapps said, as quoted by the media. “And the reason I say that is because we know what happens when dictators march across Europe. We kn…