President Vladimir Putin threatened to personally target Boris Johnson with a missile strike just before sending Russian troops into Ukraine, the former British prime minister claims.
The apparent threat came in a phone call just before the invasion on Feb. 24, according to a new UKTN documentary airing Monday.
Johnson and other Western leaders rushed to Kiev to show support for Ukraine and deter a Russian attack.
“He threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile it only takes a minute,’ or something like that,” Johnson quoted Putin as saying.
Johnson emerged as one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s most passionate Western backers.
But ahead of the invasion, he said he was doing everything he could to tell Putin there was no immediate prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, while warning him that any invasion would bring “more NATO, not less NATO” to Russia’s borders. would mean.
“He said, ‘Boris, you’re saying Ukraine won’t join NATO any time soon.
“‘What’s Coming Soon?’ And I said, ‘well, it won’t join NATO in the near future. You know that very well’.”
On the missile threat, Johnson added: “I think from the very relaxed tone he took, the kind of aloofness he seemed to have, that he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.”
The UKTN documentary charts the growing rift 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 prior to Russia’s attack.
“If you know that tomorrow Russia will occupy Ukraine, why don’t you give me something today to stop it?” he says.
“Or if you can’t give it to me, stop it yourself.”
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