The Kremlin on Monday branded as a «lie» recent statements by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about an alleged threat by Russian President Vladimir Putin of a missile attack on the United Kingdom.
«What Johnson has said is not true. More precisely, it is a lie. I do not know whether it is a conscious lie, about which one should ask why he gave this version, or whether it is unconscious, given that he did not understand what Putin was talking about,» said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
«I repeat again and officially. It is a lie. There were no missile threats,» he said, before revealing that «speaking about the challenges to Russia’s security, Putin replied that, if Ukraine joined NATO, the potential deployment of NATO or U.S. missiles on the borders meant that one of them could reach Moscow in minutes.»
Peskov also declined to comment on a documentary aired by the British television network BBC in which Johnson’s statements are contained, Russian news agency Interfax reported. «If the rest of the film is along the same lines (as the statements of the former UK prime minister), we advise not to waste your time (watching the documentary),» he remarked.
Johnson claimed that Putin conveyed to him during a call just before the invasion of Ukraine that he could send a missile to the UK «in a minute.» «He 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. But I think from the very relaxed tone he was taking, the kind of air of indifference he seemed to have, he was just playing on my attempts to get him to negotiate,» he explained.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
