UK Prime Minister on Putin
The former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed that the Russian President, Vladimir Putin threatened to personally target him with a missile attack just before ordering Russian forces into Ukraine. According to a media report, Johnson revealed that he had this conversation on a phone call with Russian President Putin before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022.
Amid the Russian-Ukrainian tension, the UK PM, Johnson and other western leaders had been hurrying to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine and try to deter a Russian attack.
Putin threatened me: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Speaking to the media, the prime minister said, “He sort of threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute’, or something like that.”
Also, Johnson has emerged as one of the most impassioned Western backers of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, before the invasion, Johnson said that he was at pains to tell Putin that there was no imminent prospect of Ukraine joining NATO while warning him that any invasion would mean “more NATO, not less NATO” on Russia’s borders.
“He said, ‘Boris, you say that Ukraine is not going to join NATO any time soon,” UK PM told the media.
“What is any time soon? And I said, well it’s not going to join NATO for the foreseeable future. You know that perfectly well.”
Also Read: British PM fires Conservative party chairman over tax bill allegations
On the missile threat, the PM added, “I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.”
Moreover, he said that the BBC documentary charts the growing divide between the Russian leader and the West in the years before the invasion of Ukraine.
It also features Zelensky reflecting on his thwarted ambitions to join NATO before Russia’s attack.
“If you know that tomorrow Russia will occupy Ukraine, why don’t you give me something today I can stop it with?” the PM added.
“Or if you can’t give it to me, then stop it yourself,” further, he said.
