“He tried to intimidate.” Boris Johnson talked about his conversation with Putin before the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Authors:
Liza Brovko, Oksana Kovalenko
Date:

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with Russian President Putin in early February 2022 — a few weeks before the start of a full-scale war. During the conversation, Putin tried to intimidate the British politician.

Johnson told about this in an interview with "Babel".

In the conversation, Putin told Johnson that he was not going to attack Ukraine and was outraged that Ukraine wanted to join NATO.

"I said what was true at the time: that Ukraine will not join NATO in the near future, because many other countries — the French, the Germans, the Hungarians — are against it. I said that Ukraine is not a threat to him. Putin clarified what ʼin the near futureʼ means — next month, next year. He tried to make me say that Ukraine will never join NATO. I couldnʼt say that because I didnʼt believe it," Johnson added.

However, now, according to him, there are no arguments against Ukraine joining NATO, because earlier the country was not accepted because of fear of Putin, and "this led to the worst war in Europe in 80 years."

"Even during this conversation, Putin was playing with me. He tried to present this conflict as a nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO. He ambiguously joked, saying, ʼI wouldnʼt want to hurt you with a nuclear weapon, Boris.ʼ That is, he hinted that it could happen by accident and nobody needs such mistakes. He tried to intimidate," Johnson emphasized.

The British ex-prime minister believes that in reality the invasion of Russia did not happen because of NATO, but because of "dislike for Ukraine and the fear that it will choose a different path, different from Russiaʼs" — Putin wanted to suppress Ukrainian freedom and rebuild the Soviet empire.