Bill Clinton 'suggested Russia join NATO', Putin claims in bombshell interview, as he blames Boris for ongoing war

9 February 2024, 00:19 | Updated: 9 February 2024, 00:56

By Kieran Kelly

@kellyjourno

Bill Clinton deceived Russia about joining NATO, Vladimir Putin has claimed in a new bombshell interview.

Giving his first interview in several years with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Putin claimed Clinton, president from 1993 to 2001, pondered allowing Russia to join NATO.

"Do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, it would happen?" Putin reportedly asked Clinton in the early 2000s.

"You know, it's interesting. I think so," Mr Clinton reportedly told him - before telling him just hours later that it would not be possible after 'speaking to his team'.

Putin then appeared to suggest he would have considered joining NATO.

"If he had said yes, the process of rapprochement would have commenced, and eventually it might have happened if we had seen some sincere wish on the side of our partners. But it didn't happen," he told Carlson.

It is just one of a number of bombshell claims made by Putin in the interview, which is more than two hours long.

'Johnson stopped Ukraine peace deal'

Another bombshell claim made by Putin centred around potential peace talks just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Ukraine was reportedly ready to sign a peace treaty, but Putin claims they eventually reneged on the deal due to pressure from the former UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Mr Johnson thought it was "better to fight Russia", Putin claimed in the interview, and so Ukraine reportedly pulled out of the peace negotiations.

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"They would give everything needed for us to return what was lost during the clashes with Russia. And we agreed with this proposal."

Mr Putin went on: "And the fact that they obey the demand or persuasion of Mr Johnson, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, seems ridiculous.

"And it's very sad to me because, as Mr Arakhamia put it, we could have stopped those hostilities with war a year and a half ago already. But the British persuaded us and we refused this. Where is Mr Johnson now? And the war continues."

Putin also claimed that Russia did not start the war in Ukraine and suggested it would not be over any time soon, as he has 'not yet achieved his aims'.

Russia launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, thinking it would be able to take Kyiv in a matter of days.

But Ukrainian forces, with the help of Western allies such as the United States and United Kingdom through military aid, have been able to keep Russia at bay.

Putin, pressed by Carlson, then went on to reference current affairs, saying he does not remember the last time he spoke to the US President Joe Biden.

At the very least, it was before February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin said.

He also sang Donald Trump's praises.