Ex-UK PM Johnson says he offered Zelenskyy to evacuate when Russia invaded Ukraine
Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Photo:Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS)
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he offered to help move Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to safety at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a BBC documentary “Putin vs the West,” aired on Jan. 30, Johnson said that less than a fortnight after the UK defense secretary left Moscow, as tanks rolled over the border on Feb. 24, he received a phone call in the middle of the night from Zelenskyy.
“Zelensky’s very, very calm,” Johnson said.
“But, he tells me, you know, they (Russians) are attacking everywhere.”
Johnson said he had offered to help move him to safety.
“He doesn’t take me up on that offer,” the former UK PM said.
“He heroically stayed where he was.”
Johnson added that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had also threatened him with a missile strike in an “extraordinary” phone call in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In turn, UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace reiterated that nine days after Johnson’s conversation with Putin, on Feb. 11, he flew to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.
As he left the meeting, he said that Russia’s chief of general staff, General Valery Gerasimov told him that Russia would “never again … be humiliated.”
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