Boris Johnson recounts when Vladimir Putin ‘threatened’ him

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a BBC documentary that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “sort of threatened” him before the invasion of Ukraine. An accusation denied by the Kremlin.

An exchange he has not forgotten. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “sort of threatened” by Vladimir Putin, before the latter decided to invade Ukraine.

Indeed, in a three-part documentary, the first episode of which is broadcast this Monday evening on BBC Two, the former Downing Street tenant recounted his “very long” and “extraordinary” call with the Russian president, following of his visit to Kyiv.

During their exchange, Vladimir Putin allegedly told his British interlocutor that he did not want to “hurt” him, but “that a missile would only take a minute or something like that”.

A response which also follows the warnings mentioned by Boris Johnson in the event of an attack on Ukraine.

In this documentary, the Briton judged that Vladimir Putin was trying to avoid any negotiation by threatening him. “I think from the very relaxed tone he took, the detachment he seemed to have, he was playing off my attempts to get him to negotiate,” he said.

The Kremlin evokes a “deliberate lie”

The Kremlin insisted on denying Boris Johnson’s remarks on Monday. During a press briefing, Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Russian presidency, indicated that it was “a deliberate lie” before wondering about “the purpose” of such an exaggeration.

The latter indicated that there had been “no threat by means of missiles”, even wondering if the British Prime Minister had understood what Vladimir Putin had told him.

Also note the presence in this documentary of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He tells there in particular how he came to enrage against the attitude of the Westerners at the dawn of the invasion of his country.

“If you know that tomorrow Russia is going to invade Ukraine, why don’t you give me something to stop it today? If you cannot, then stop it yourselves”, he chanted to his allies, worried about the situation to come in his country.