Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed in a BBC documentary that Russian President Vladimir Putin “threatened him somewhat” before the invasion of Ukraine by telling him “a missile would take a minute”.
In the three-part documentary “Putin Vs the West”, the first episode of which will be shown on BBC Two on Monday evening, the former head of the British government talks about his “very long” and “extraordinary” telephone conversation with the Russian president after his visit to Kiev in early February last year.
At the time, Putin continued to insist that he had no intention of invading neighboring Ukraine, despite the Russian army deployed in the border regions.
Boris Johnson claims to have warned the Russian president about the harsh sanctions Western countries would take if he did. The former British prime minister claims that Putin told him: “Boris, you say that Ukraine will not join NATO any time soon (…) What do you mean by ‘soon’?” “That it will not join NATO in the near future, you know very well,” replied Johnson, who has supported the Ukrainians since the beginning of the conflict.
“At one point he kind of threatened me and said ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile it would take a minute’ or something like that,” Boris Johnson added.
“With a rocket it only takes a minute”
Boris Johnson tells BBC about Putin’s extraordinary threat to invasion of Ukrainehttps://t.co/VupIDtK1H1
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 30, 2023
“I think given the relaxed tone that prevailed, the aloofness he seemed to have, he didn’t take into account my attempts to get him to negotiate,” said the former British prime minister, who left Downing Street at the start . September after a series of controversies.
In the documentary, Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky says that he was disturbed by the attitude of Western countries at the time.
“If you know Russia is going to invade Ukraine tomorrow, why don’t you offer me today what I need to stop it? If you can’t, stop it yourself,” he said.
Source: DN
