1675063946 Johnson says Putin threatened him to send a missile to

Johnson says Putin threatened him to send ‘a missile’ to Britain before invading Ukraine The

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during his visit to the Sizewell B EDF nuclear power station in Sizewell, eastern England, September 1, 2022. - Outgoing British Prime Minister Johnson pledged £700 million for the Sizewell C nuclear power station project on Thursday during his final major keynote speech. (Photo by CHRIS RADBURN / various sources / AFP) CHRIS RADBURN/AFP Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during his visit to the Sizewell B EDF nuclear power station in Sizewell, eastern England, September 1, 2022. – Outgoing British Prime Minister Johnson on Thursday pledged £700 million for the Sizewell C nuclear power station project during his last major keynote speech. (Photo by CHRIS RADBURN / various sources / AFP)

CHRIS RADBURN / AFP

Johnson says Putin threatened to send “a missile” to Britain before invading Ukraine (photo of Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, September 1, 2022)

INTERNATIONAL – That’s a threat that would have made more than one tremble. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tells a BBC documentary that before invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin “kind of threatened” him, saying “a missile would last a minute”.

In this three-part documentary, the first episode of which will be broadcast on BBC Two on Monday evening, the former British Prime Minister recounts his “very long” and “extraordinary” phone call with the Russian President following his visit to Kyiv in early February.

At the time, despite the massive influx of Russian soldiers into the border regions, Vladimir Putin continued to claim that he had no intention of invading his Ukrainian neighbor.

“Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a rocket it would take a minute”

Boris Johnson says he warned the Russian president about the harsh sanctions Westerners would impose if he went down that route. “He said: ‘Boris, you say Ukraine will not join NATO any time soon. (…) What do you mean by ‘not so soon’?” says Boris Johnson. “Well, she’s not going to join NATO any time soon, you know that for a fact,” the former British leader, an early supporter of the Ukrainians, continues.

“At one point he kind of threatened me and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a rocket it would take a minute’ or something,” Boris Johnson continues.

“I think that because of his very relaxed tone and his apparent detachment, he toyed with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” adds the former British leader, who left Downing Street in early September following a spate of scandals.

In the documentary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recounts how he became angry at the attitude of Westerners at the time: “If you know that Russia will invade Ukraine tomorrow, why is what you don’t give me today enough to stop him?” to stop? If you can’t, stop doing it yourself. »

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