Boris Johnson Says Vladimir Putin Threatened Him With Missile Launch: NPR

LONDON — Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said President Vladimir Putin did not seem serious about avoiding war in the days before Russia invaded Ukraine — and told some point to the British leader that it would be easy to kill him with a missile.

The Kremlin has denied that Putin made such a threat.

In a documentary released on Monday, Johnson says he called Putin in February 2022 and tried to talk him out of going to war, telling him Ukraine would not join NATO for the foreseeable future – a long-standing concern of the Russian leader – and warning that an invasion would lead to “a massive invasion”. “Western Sanctions.

“From the very relaxed tone he took, the kind of detachment he seemed to have, he was just playing with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson said in the BBC series “Putin vs. the West”. “

Johnson says Putin “threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t mean to hurt you, but with a missile it would only take a minute,’ or something like that.”

The three-part series produced by veteran documentary filmmaker Norma Percy chronicles how Western leaders treated the Russian president in the years leading up to the February 24, 2022 invasion.

Percy said on Monday she didn’t think Putin was making a direct threat, but “it was a reminder that he could do it, and (Johnson) should remember that when dealing with him.”

Asked about Johnson’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said his account was false, “or, more accurately, it was a lie.” Peskov said Johnson may have deliberately lied or misunderstood what Putin was telling him.

“There were no missile threats,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “While speaking about the security challenges for Russia, President Putin said that if Ukraine joined NATO, the potential deployment of missiles from the United States or other NATO countries near our borders would mean that any missile of this type could reach Moscow in minutes.

Johnson was one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s most prominent international allies until he was ousted from office in mid-2022 by ethics scandals. Britain remains a major supplier of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.