Putin is like fat boy in Dickens trying to scare us, says Johnson

BORIS JOHNSON has compared Vladimir Putin to “the fat boy in Dickens” over his nuclear threats, as he backed a plan to use seized Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine.

The former prime minister said that the Russian president “wants us to think about” the potential for nuclear weapons to be unleashed but “he’s never going to do it”. Speaking at a breakfast event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Johnson said: “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, he wants to make our flesh creep. He wants us to think about it. He’s never going to do it.”

The comment is a reference to The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, in which a boy tells an old lady he intends to “make your flesh creep” with a shocking disclosure. Mr Johnson said using nuclear weapons would put the Russian president into “a complete economic cryogenic paralysis” and “terrify the Russians”.

The former premier also told the audience to “stop worrying about Kremlinology”, as he joked: “It’s difficult to work out what’s gonna happen in UK politics, let alone in the Kremlin.”

Mr Johnson also signalled his support for new laws to seize and sell sanctioned Russian assets to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine, insisting that “they need to pay”.

The former prime minister told The Daily Telegraph that he supported the idea that Russia should hand reparations to Kyiv for the destruction caused by Vladimir Putin’s war. Canada and the US have already moved forward with legislation to make the process legal.

Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s deputy prime minister, said other countries should “be thinking in those terms as well because so much damage has been done. And the country that did the damage should pay”.

Asked by The Telegraph if he agreed with Ms Freedland, Mr Johnson said: “I think Chrystia put it very well. The Russians need to pay.”

The Government is mulling the idea of using seized assets to pay for the reconstruction efforts. The UK has already seized more than £18billion of Russian assets.

It came as the Government was told it must take back responsibility for funding the BBC World Service or risk losing the “information Cold War” to Russia and China. Richard Sharp, the BBC chairman, warned that the service would be in jeopardy without a substantial increase in funding, but this could not be met by the corporation.

The World Service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2014, when responsibility was transferred to the BBC.