It would take a minute to kill you, Vladimir Putin told Boris Johnson

Vladimir Putin warned Boris Johnson he could easily kill him with a missile during an ‘extraordinary’ phone call before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with his cabinet via a video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow. Picture: AFP

President Putin warned Boris Johnson that he could easily kill him with a missile during an “extraordinary” phone call before Russia invaded Ukraine, the former prime minister said.

Johnson said that Putin had made the comment during a long call in February last year, as Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s border. “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,” Johnson told the BBC. It was unclear if the comment was made in jest. “From the 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 said.

The conversation came shortly after Johnson had travelled to Kyiv to offer support to President Zelensky. At the time, Russia was denying that it had any intention of advancing across the border despite the troop build-up. Three weeks later, on February 24, it invaded. Johnson said he recalled telling Putin there would be tougher western sanctions if he invaded and this would only intensify the West’s support for Kyiv, which would mean “more NATO, not less” on Russian borders. “[Putin] said, ‘Boris, you say that Ukraine is not going to join NATO any time soon. What is any time soon?’ I said ‘Well … for the foreseeable future. You know that perfectively well,’” Johnson said of the exchange.

The conversation is disclosed in a BBC2 series, Putin vs the West, which starts today. The channel also interviewed Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, who made a late attempt to prevent the war by going to Moscow a week after the Johnson-Putin call.

Wallace met Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s minister of defence, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff who was recently promoted to overall commander of the war in Ukraine. Wallace said that his counterparts denied an impending attack but also claimed that Ukrainians “won’t fight” and would welcome Russians. “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,” Wallace told the BBC.

“It was the fairly chilling but direct lie of what they were not going to do that I think to me confirmed they were going to do it,” Wallace said. “I remember as we were walking out General Gerasimov said, ‘Never again will we be humiliated. We used to be the fourth army in the world, we’re now number two. It’s now America and us.’ And there in that minute was that sense of potentially why [they were doing this].”

Britain is seen in Moscow as Ukraine’s most strident backer in Europe. Johnson made several trips to Kyiv while in Downing Street and also visited a week ago.

Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, confirmed this month that Britain is to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. America, Germany, Poland, Norway and France are also promising tanks for Kyiv. Other European states and Canada are set to join the “tank coalition”.

The Kremlin said last week that the deliveries were evidence of the West’s “direct involvement” in the war.

The Times