Boris Johnson has claimed that Vladimir Putin told him “I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute”, in a call ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The former prime minister said the “extraordinary” conversation took place in February after he had visited Kyiv in a last-ditch attempt to show Western support for Ukraine amid growing fears of a Russian assault.
Mr Johnson recalled that he warned Mr Putin there would be tougher Western sanctions if he ordered an invasion of Ukraine. “He sort of threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute’, or something like that,” Mr Johnson said.“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.”
“And I remember saying to Minister Shoigu ‘they will fight’ and he said, ‘my mother is Ukrainian, they won’t!’. He also said he had no intention of invading,” Mr Wallace said.
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