Boris: Putin’s like fat boy in a Dickens novel
...as Moscow talks up nuclear war
BORIS Johnson compared Vladimir Putin to ‘the fat boy in Dickens who wants to make our flesh creep’ as he dismissed the idea that the Russian leader could use nuclear weapons.
Speaking at a Ukraine breakfast event on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Johnson urged the West to ‘give them the tanks’ they need to take on Russia.
The former prime minister also quipped it was time for Mr Putin to ‘get the puck out of Ukraine’ after a Canadian politician used an ice hockey metaphor to describe the conflict.
Mr Johnson was addressing a stellar gathering of political and business leaders, including the bosses of US financial giants Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, the Dutch prime minister and Canada’s finance minister. The gathering also heard from Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking via videolink. However, it came as one of Putin’s cronies issued a chilling threat to the West, again raising the prospect of nuclear war, yesterday.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of President Putin’s national security council, wrote on social media that western politicians were ‘repeating like a mantra: to achieve peace, Russia must lose’.
He said: ‘[But] it never occurs to any of them to draw the following elementary conclusion from this: the loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can trigger the start of a nuclear war.
‘Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends. This should be clear to anyone. Even a western politician.’ The Kremlin endorsed Medvedev’s comments, saying they were ‘in full accordance’ with Russian nuclear policy.
It came a day after Mr Zelensky’s keynote Davos address, urging the West to speed up its deliveries of weaponry to Ukraine’s armed forces.
Mr Johnson called for resolve in facing down Mr Putin’s aggression.
‘Putin wants to present it as a nuclear stand-off between Nato and Russia: nonsense – he’s not going to use nuclear weapons.
‘He’s like the fat boy in Dickens who wants to make our flesh creep. He wants us to think about it – he’s never going to do it.’
He argued that doing so would see Russia put in an ‘ economic, cryogenic paralysis’ and alienate states such as India and China currently ‘giving him the benefit of the doubt’ as well as terrifying his own people.
The former prime minister said: ‘He’s not going to do it – don’t go down that rabbit hole. What we have got to focus on is supporting Ukraine and giving Volodymyr Zel
ensky the tools he needs to finish the job. They can win and they will win. We’ve got to keep going. Give them the tanks. There’s absolutely nothing to be lost.’
Mr Johnson’s ‘fat boy’ description of Putin was a reference to a character called Joe in Charles Dickens’ novel The Pickwick Papers who tells an old lady ‘I wants to make your flesh creep’. His speech was made a day after he was awarded a Citizen of Kyiv medal at the forum by the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko and his fellow ex-boxer brother Wladimir.
Ramping up the rhetoric in Russia yesterday, Medvedev said: ‘Tomorrow at the Ramstein base in [Germany], the great military leaders will discuss new tactics and strategy, as well as deliveries of new heavy weapons and strike systems to Ukraine.’
The politician stepped into Putin’s shoes as president in 2008 for a fouryear term, while Putin became prime minister for that time. The move was seen as largely symbolic, with Putin maintaining ultimate power.
When he first became president in 2008, he promised to modernise and liberalise Russia, and often spoke of his love of tech gadgets and of blogging. He even visited California and was given a brand new iPhone 4 from Apple founder Steve Jobs.
But he has since shunned his Western credential and now frequently embarks on tirades on the Telegram messaging app to his followers about Russia’s place in the world, and his hatred of the West.
Observers have said his new persona is a desperate attempt to retain relevance in Moscow’s political circles, which have become significantly more precarious since he left the presidency and Putin reclaimed the top job in the Kremlin.
‘Don’t go down that rabbit hole’