Boris Johnson had called Vladimir Putin a “bloody idiot” for his imperial ambitions.
The former British prime minister told the Russian leader that “there will be no more empire” and declared that Ukraine and other Eastern European countries would never again join the “Russian empire.”
Johnson, 60, also warned that the West was in “retreat” and that Donald Trump would not “do everything… to help Ukraine” unless NATO members increased their defense spending.
Speaking to Baltic news website Delfi, he said: “What Putin is doing is archaic and barbaric, and he needs to understand that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, none of these countries are part of the Russian empire anymore. And neither does Ukraine.
‘It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. No more empire, Vladimir, you fucking idiot. Excuse my language.’
Johnson also proposed to world leaders to renew their efforts to have Ukraine join NATO in order to deter a future Russian invasion.
He said: ‘People have stopped talking about it. And I think it’s a big, big loss, because the West is going backwards again.
‘We have to be much more decisive. “We will not solve the Ukraine problem without Article 5 guarantees or without long-term membership in NATO.”
Boris Johnson had called Vladimir Putin a “bloody idiot” for his imperial ambitions.

The former British prime minister told the Russian leader that “there will be no more empire” and declared that Ukraine and other Eastern European countries would never again join the “Russian empire.”

Johnson, 60, also warned that the West was in “retreat” and that Donald Trump would not “do everything… to help Ukraine” unless NATO members increase their defense spending (pictured: the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensy with Boris Johnson in September 2023). )
Johnson chastised Germany and other NATO members for demanding that President-elect Donald Trump send aid to Ukraine without meeting their own military spending commitments.
He said: “Until we take this seriously, I don’t see how we can convince the Trump administration to do everything it can to help Ukraine.”
‘I don’t see how Germany can just sit back and refuse to spend enough on defense, demand that Trump help Ukraine, and say they don’t want to send frozen Russian 300 billion to Ukraine. It’s absurd.’
The former Conservative leader also complained that officials’ “stupid” objections to arming Ukraine meant British anti-tank missiles only reached the country about a month before the Russian invasion.
“The problem was the British system itself: our officials at the Foreign Office and elsewhere who just… put forward the stupidest arguments,” he said.
“I’m not saying they were stupid, but I think their objections were wrong.”
Johnson is credited with rallying Europe’s support for Ukraine following Putin’s invasion in February 2022.
He was the first Western leader to visit his capital, kyiv, after the outbreak of war and returned twice during his term.