Johnson: 'Putin threatened to bomb UK'

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Boris Johnson with a missile attack during an "extraordinary" phone call in the run-up to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on February 24: the former British prime minister himself said when interviewed by the BBC for a documentary entitled 'Putin against the West'.

The then prime minister said Putin told him "a minute would be enough."

It is impossible to know whether Putin's threat was genuine, writes the BBC.

However, the British broadcaster comments that given previous Russian attacks on the UK - the latest being in Salisbury in 2018 - any threat from the Russian leader, however slight, is likely a threat Johnson would have had no other choice than to take seriously.

Before the threat from the Russian leader, Johnson had warned him - during a "very long" phone call in early February 2022 - that the war would be a "total catastrophe" and would lead to Western sanctions and an increase in NATO troops to borders of Russia.

Johnson also tried to dissuade him by telling him that Ukraine would not join NATO "in the foreseeable future".

"At one point he threatened me, saying: 'Boris, I don't want to hurt you but, with a missile,

it would only take a minute.'

Or something like that," the former prime minister told the BBC. "But I think from the very relaxed tone he had, from the sort of detached air he seemed to have, he was just playing with my attempts to get him to negotiate," he said. added commenting that Putin was "very informal" during that "extraordinary phone call". Nine days after the phone call, on February 11, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, in Moscow. The documentary reveals that Wallace he left for London with assurances that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but said both sides knew it was a lie.