British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are likely to fail because negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin was akin to dealing with “a crocodile when it’s got your leg in its jaws.”

“It is very hard to see how the Ukrainians can negotiate with Putin now, given his manifest lack of good faith,” Johnson said ahead of his trip to India to meet with his counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “[Putin’s] strategy, which is evident, is to try [to] engulf and capture as much of Ukraine as he can and perhaps to have some sort of negotiation from a position of strength.”