Former British prime minister Boris Johnson likened Russian leader Vladimir Putin to a “fat boy” character in a Charles Dickens novel on Thursday, saying he wanted to “make a meat licker” of the nuclear threat.
Speaking in Davos, Johnson said Putin wanted to present the war in Ukraine as “a nuclear standoff between NATO and Russia.”
Johnson said Putin would never use nuclear weapons
“Nonsense. They will not use nuclear weapons. He’s like the fat kid in Dickens. They want to make our flesh creep,” Johnson continued.
“They want us to think about it. They won’t do it,” he added.
The “fat boy” is a character in Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers, who seems to enjoy scaring a trembling old woman by telling her “I want to make your flesh creep.”
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Johnson said that Putin would not use nuclear weapons because “we have put him into complete economic cryogenic paralysis” and that using them would lead China and India against Moscow.
Johnson, who resigned in July after a series of scandals, was one of Ukraine’s closest allies while in office.
He made comments about Putin while arguing that Western countries should stop focusing on the Kremlin leader and provide more weapons to Ukraine so that the country can defend itself.
“He’s going to win. We have to help him win quickly,” Johnson said.
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