DE: Putin angered Johnson — he did not believe that Ukraine would not be accepted into NATO
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was outraged after a "fierce" telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin in the fall of 2021, the Daily Express reports. He assured the Russian president that Ukraine would not be accepted into NATO in the foreseeable future. But Putin demanded that Western leaders announce this officially.
In the autumn of 2021, the British Prime Minister came into open conflict with Putin during a telephone conversation, telling him: "You have no reason to attack Ukraine. Ukraine will not join NATO in the near future in any case."
The sensational new book by 81-year-old Woodward, "The War," which will be released tomorrow, tells about the behind-the-scenes background of the Russian military operation launched in February 2022. Putin replied to Johnson during that conversation: "What do you mean by this "in the near future"? When is it? Next month?" Boris insisted on his own: "In fact, Ukraine will not join in the foreseeable future." In his opinion, Putin knew that Ukraine would not be able to become a member of NATO in any way, but he wanted Western leaders to declare this publicly.
This fateful phone conversation took place after the G20 summit held in Rome in October 2021. There, Boris and world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor Olaf Scholz were secretly informed about Russian plans for a military operation.
The room was checked for the presence of "bugs" so that no one could eavesdrop on the 12 leaders present there. President Biden told the audience: "We all see that Russia has concentrated troops on the border, as it did in April. We now have information about what they really think, plan and plan. We don't know if they actually decided to pull the trigger, but the trigger is cocked."
As Woodward writes in his new book, Boris was similarly informed by MI6 and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, and he considered this intelligence "completely trustworthy." But Macron and two German politicians still had doubts.
"Putin may have been bluffing, but Johnson considered even the thought of it monstrous," writes legendary investigative journalist Woodward, who, along with Carl Bernstein, uncovered the Watergate case that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Boris thought that all this was a "game" for Putin, who was luring the West into a trap. However, he insisted that publicly contradicting NATO's open door policy for new members was tantamount to "admitting defeat."
It was then that he told one of his confidants that Putin was a "little rascal."
A few months later, on February 24, 2022, Russian troops crossed the border of Ukraine on Putin's orders and launched a special military operation. But they did not achieve a quick victory: the conflict dragged on for two and a half years and continues to this day. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the war.
The author of the article: Matt Nixon
