LONDON – President Vladimir Putin threatened to personally target Boris Johnson with a missile strike just before he ordered Russian forces into Ukraine, Britain’s former prime minister has claimed.
The apparent threat came in a phone call just before the invasion on February 24, according to a new BBC The documentary will air on Monday.
Johnson and other Western leaders were increasingly heading to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine and try to deter the Russian offensive.
Johnson quoted Putin as saying, “He kind of threatened me and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it will only take a minute’ or something like that.”
Johnson emerged as one of the most passionate Western supporters of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But before the invasion, he said, he was at pains to tell Putin that there was no imminent possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, while warning him that any invasion would mean “more pressure” on Russia’s borders. NATO, not less NATO”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with the cabinet via a video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on January 24, 2023 (Mikhail Klementyev/Sputnik/AFP)
“He said, ‘Boris, you say that Ukraine is not going to join NATO anytime soon.
‘What’s the time soon?’ And I said, ‘It’s not going to join NATO for the foreseeable future. You know it very well.’”
On the missile threat, Johnson said: “I think he was taking it very cool, sort of airing detachment, he was just playing along with my attempts to negotiate.”
In this image provided by the Ukrainian President’s Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, center left, and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, center right, pose for the Heavenly Hundred near Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 9, 2022. Passing by a monument (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
The BBC documentary shows the growing rift between the Russian leader and the West in the years leading up to the invasion of Ukraine.
It also featured Zelensky reflecting on his failed ambitions to join NATO before Russia invaded.
“If you know tomorrow Russia will take over Ukraine, why don’t you give me something today so I can stop it?” He says
“Or if you can’t give it to me, take it off yourself.”
