Boris Johnson says Putin is like the 'fat boy in Dickens' and his nuclear threats are 'nonsense'
19 January 2023, 12:41 | Updated: 19 January 2023, 13:57
Boris Johnson has compared Vladimir Putin to the “fat boy in Dickens”, claiming he only wants to "make us think about nuclear weapons being used" and would never deliver on his threat.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the ex-PM said any use by Russia of nuclear weapons would render it "completely paralysed economically", as states such as China and India would turn against it.
Mr Johnson urged western allies to supply Ukraine with tanks to help it fight Russian forces.
When Canada's deputy PM Chrystia Freeland employed an ice-hockey metaphor to call for more support, Mr Johnson said that Vladimir Putin must “get the puck out of Ukraine”, The Times reported.
Asked what he thought was going through the Russian president's mind, the former UK premier warned against spending too much time obsessing about Putin or worrying about the escalations of the conflict.
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“Putin wants to present it as a nuclear stand-off between Nato and Russia," he said.
“Nonsense. He’s not going to use nuclear weapons, OK. 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 fat boy' is a reference to Charles Dickens’s debut novel, The Pickwick Papers, in which a boy tells an old woman that he intends to “make your flesh creep”.
Mr Johnson said using nuclear weapons would send the Russian leader into “a complete economic cryogenic paralysis”, turn countries including China and India against him, and “terrify the Russians”.
He added “He’s not going to do it. Don’t go down that rabbit hole, stop it.”
Mr Johnson also urged audience members to “stop worrying about Kremlinology”.
“It’s difficult to work out what’s gonna happen in UK politics," he quipped, "let alone in the Kremlin.”
“What we’ve got to focus on is supporting Ukraine and giving Volodymyr Zelensky the tools he needs to finish the job. And they can win and they will win . . . Give them the tanks.
His comments come after top Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev warned Nato that the defeat of Russia in Ukraine could spark a nuclear war.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the country's former president has repeatedly raised the threat of a using nuclear weapons, but his admission of the possibility of Russia losing the conflict indicates the level of concern in the Kremlin over increased Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
"The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war," Mr Medvedev wrote in a post on Telegram.
"Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends," said Mr Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Putin's security council.
Asked if Mr Mevdev's comments signified that Russia was escalating the crisis to a new level, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "No, it absolutely does not mean that."
He said Mr Medvedev's remarks were in full accordance with the country's nuclear doctrine which allows for a nuclear strike after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened".
Mr Medvedev warned that the nuclear risks of the Ukraine conflict should be obvious to any Western politicians who had "preserved at least some traces of intelligence".
Mr Johnson was joined on a discussion panel by Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, and Ukraine deputy prime minister and trade and economic minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
In an address to the event via videolink, Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for countries to move faster in supplying weapons to Ukraine.
“The vaccine against Russian tyranny is available,” he said.
