Russia’s ambassador to Britain said on Thursday that the ouster of Boris Johnson was a just reward for a “belligerent” anti-Russian policy of supporting Ukraine while ignoring the economic needs of the British people.
“He focused too much on the geopolitical situation, in Ukraine,” Andrei Kelin, Russian ambassador to Britain, told Reuters in an interview in London.
“He left a lot behind the country, the people, the state of the economy, and that’s what brought this result,” Kelin said in English. “Of course we prefer someone who is not so antagonistic or belligerent.”
Johnson, the face of the 2016 Brexit campaign that won a resounding election victory in 2019 before pulling Britain out of the European Union, announced he was leaving the European Union on Thursday after being abandoned by ministers and a majority of its conservative lawmakers by a series of scandals.
Kremlin on Boris Johnson: ‘We don’t like him either’
The Kremlin said on Thursday that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not like Russia and that Moscow did not like him either.
Speaking during a briefing with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “He [Johnson] doesn’t like us, we don’t like him either.
Peskov said reports that Johnson would soon resign as prime minister gave the Kremlin little concern.
Other Russians were more brutal. Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska said on Telegram that it was an “inglorious end” for a “stupid clown” whose conscience would be blinded by “tens of thousands of lives in this senseless conflict in Ukraine”.
Maria Zakharova, the top spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said Johnson’s downfall was a symptom of the decline of the West, which she said was torn apart by political, ideological and economic crises.
“The moral of the story is: don’t try to destroy Russia,” Zakharova said. “Russia cannot be destroyed. You can break your teeth with it – and then choke on them.”
Even before President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Johnson had repeatedly criticized Putin – calling him a ruthless and possibly irrational Kremlin boss who was endangering the world with his crazy ambitions.
After the invasion, Johnson made Britain one of Ukraine’s biggest Western supporters, sending weapons, applying some of the harshest sanctions in modern history to Russia, and urging Ukraine to defeat the vast Russian military.
Such was Johnson’s support for Ukraine that he was affectionately known as “Borys Johnsoniuk” by some in Kiev. He sometimes ended his speeches with “Slava Ukraini” – or “glory to Ukraine”.
Johnson, the face of the 2016 Brexit campaign that won a resounding election victory in 2019 before pulling Britain out of the European Union, even spoke Russian in February, telling the Russian people that he did not believe in the “unnecessary and bloody” war. it was in your name.
Russia has repeatedly dismissed him as an ill-prepared fool trying to punch far beyond Britain’s true weight. Zakharova happily portrayed him as the author of his own downfall.
“Boris Johnson was hit by a boomerang thrown by himself,” she said. “His comrades-in-arms handed him over.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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