Putin threatened me with missile strike before Ukraine war: Boris Johnson

TIL Desk/World/London/ Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “threatened him with a missile strike during an extraordinary phone call” ahead of Moscow launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

He made the remarks in a BBC documentary titled ‘Putin Vs the West’ which will be broadcast on Monday. “He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that.

“But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson was quoted as saying in the documentary. The former Prime Minister also said that he warned Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more NATO troops on Russia’s borders.

He also tried to deter Russian military action by telling Putin that Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”, the BBC reported. Johnson further said that “Putin had been very familiar during the most extraordinary call”.