CHRIS RADBURN / AFP
Johnson recounts Putin threatening him to send ‘a missile’ into the UK before the invasion of Ukraine (Photo by Boris Johnson when he was still Prime Minister of the UK, September 1, 2022)
INTERNATIONAL – This is a threat that would have made more than one tremble. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recounts in a BBC documentary that Russian President Vladimir Putin the “somewhat threatened” before the invasion of Ukraine by throwing: “A missile would take a minute”.
In this three-part documentary, the first episode of which is broadcast Monday evening on BBC Two, the former head of the British government recounts his ” very long “ and ” extraordinary “ call with the Russian president after his visit to kyiv in early February.
At that time, Vladimir Putin continued to maintain that he had no intention to invade its Ukrainian neighbordespite the massive influx of Russian soldiers into the border regions.
Boris Johnson, he says that he had warned the Russian president of the harsh sanctions that Westerners would take if he embarked on this path. “He said, ‘Boris, you say Ukraine is not going to join NATO anytime soon. (…) What do you mean by ‘not anytime soon’?” »says Boris Johnson. “Well she’s not going to join NATO in the near future, you know that perfectly well”continues the former British leader, early support of the Ukrainians.
“Boris, I don’t mean to hurt you, but with a missile it would take a minute”
“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”continues Boris Johnson.
“I think that from the very relaxed tone he took, the detachment he seemed to have, he was playing with my attempts to get him to negotiate”adds the former British leader, who left Downing Street in early September after a succession of scandals.
“What Mr. Johnson said is a lie. It’s either a deliberate lie, but then for what purpose? Either it is an unintentional lie, insofar as he did not understand what President Putin was telling him”reacted this Monday, January 30, Moscow, via the voice of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, who assures that there was no “no missile threat”.
In the documentary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recounts how he came to be enraged at the attitude of Westerners at the time: “If you know that tomorrow Russia is going to invade Ukraine, why don’t you give me something to stop it today? If you can’t, then stop it yourself. »
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