Boris Johnson Says Putin Threatened Him With Missile Strike in Pre-Call; Berlin Rules Out Fighter Jets For Kyiv

Ukraine is urging its allies to provide weapons supplies more quickly, as intense fighting continues in the eastern Donetsk region.
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After a weekend of attacks on the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson and ongoing battles around Bakhmut in Donetsk, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that “Russia is hoping to drag out the war and exhaust our forces. We have to make time our weapon. We must speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine.”
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Ukraine's allies agreed last week to provide the country with heavy battle tanks. Kyiv is now pressing for fighter jets as well. One Ukrainian government advisor was reported stating Saturday that "negotiations" were taking place over the possibility of sending fighter aircraft.
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Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted that fighter jets will not be provided to Ukraine. In an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Scholz said that "the question of combat aircraft does not arise at all."
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dealt another blow to Sweden's NATO bid, suggesting that his government could approve Finland's NATO membership application without its Nordic neighbor.
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Finland and Sweden both formally applied to join NATO in May of last year, reversing their long-held policy of nonalignment in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The two have vowed to take their steps forward in tandem.
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Erdogan is angry at Sweden's government for a number of reasons and is poised to make or break both countries' NATO accession plans. Hungary is the only country besides Turkey that is yet to approve the Nordic countries' bids, which the rest of the member states want to fast-track.
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Erdogan said during a speech on Sunday that Finland may receive a different message from Turkey on their application, and that Sweden would be shocked if they saw it. He warned Finland not to make the same mistake as Sweden did.
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Russia will be releasing a new history textbook for high school students in the upcoming months. This textbook will teach students about Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine. This news comes from the Interfax news agency.
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The history textbooks will cover Russia's version of events in Ukraine, including the so-called "annexation" of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russia has been accused of illegally annexing these regions following spurious referendums last September.
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Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov said on Monday that the new textbooks are expected to be ready in March, and could appear in schools from the new academic year. This was reported by Interfax, in a translated report by Google.
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Russia is working to create unified textbooks on the history of Russia and world history for students. In December, Education Minister Kravtsov said a working group would be formed to create these textbooks. This is part of Russia's effort to promote its version of events in Ukraine to students.
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Ukraine and its Western allies do not recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. They see Russia’s attempts to disseminate Russian culture and language in those areas and to “Russify” them as another abuse of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
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The Kremlin has dismissed Boris Johnson's claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile strike.
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In a BBC documentary, former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson claimed that he had a phone call with Putin before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Johnson said that Putin threatened him, saying something like, "Boris, I don't want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute."
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Johnson said that he thinks the other person was just playing along with his attempts to negotiate, based on the relaxed tone and air of detachment they seemed to have.
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Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied recent claims by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Russia was behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK. "What Mr. Johnson said is not true. More precisely, it is a lie," Peskov told reporters on Monday, according to an NBC News translation of the comments.
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Peskov said that Mr. Johnson's version of events may either be a deliberate lie, or he simply didn't understand what President Putin was talking about. If it's the latter, Peskov said, it raises some concerns about who our President is speaking with.
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"I repeat: there were no threats with missiles."
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Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Kyiv wants to join the European Union within two years, setting a very ambitious timetable for joining the bloc. He added that the Ukrainian government is committed to taking the necessary steps to make this happen.
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In an interview with Politico, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that his country is aiming to join the European Union within the next two years. He said that they are hoping to begin the pre-entry stage of negotiations in 2023.
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Ukraine has made no secret of its desire to join the European Union, and has already submitted an application to join the bloc. However, it is not the only candidate country; others, such as North Macedonia and Montenegro, have been waiting for over ten years without any progress in their own membership applications. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that EU membership for Ukraine is likely to be a process that will take "decades."
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EU commissioners are heading to Kyiv on Friday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As Politico noted, their task will likely be “managing expectations” regarding such a tight timetable for entry into the EU.
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Russia warned the United States on Monday that the last remaining pillar of bilateral nuclear arms control could expire in 2026 without a replacement, due to what it said were U.S. efforts to inflict "strategic defeat" on Moscow in Ukraine.
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Both Russia and the United States still have vast arsenals of nuclear weapons which are currently partially limited by the 2011 New START Treaty. In 2021, the treaty was extended until 2026.
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What comes after Feb. 4, 2026 is unclear, but Washington has indicated it wants to reach a follow-on agreement with Russia.
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Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA state news agency that it is quite possible that there will be no nuclear arms control treaty after 2026.
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Ryabkov, Russia’s top arms control diplomat, said the United States had in recent years failed to take into account Russia’s interests and had dismantled most of the architecture of arms control.
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"New START may not survive this," Ryabkov told RIA. "We are prepared for this possibility."
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In his remarks, Putin warned Washington that its continued military support for Ukraine could scupper the final major post-Cold War bilateral arms control treaty with Russia.
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Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the United States has supplied more than $27 billion in security assistance to the country. This assistance has included over 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft rocket systems, 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missile systems, and over 1 million 155mm artillery rounds.
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"The security situation, including arms control, has been held hostage by the U.S. line of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia," Ryabkov said.
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We will oppose this vigorously, using all the tools and resources at our disposal.
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Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to threaten him with a missile strike in what he described as an “extraordinary” phone call. This call occurred before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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In an excerpt of a BBC documentary called "Putin vs the West," Johnson says he spoke to Putin in February 2022, shortly before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. During that call, he said he told Putin that war would be an "utter catastrophe" and would entail sanctions on Moscow and likely more NATO troops on Russia's borders.
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Johnson said that after making those points during the call, in which he said Putin had been "very familiar," Putin appeared to threaten him.
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Boris Johnson has revealed that Vladimir Putin once threatened to attack him with a missile. Speaking in a new documentary, Johnson said that Putin made the threat during a meeting between the two men."He threatened me at one point, and he said, 'Boris, I don't want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute' or something like that," Johnson said.The BBC reported that the documentary will be aired later this week.
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I think the reason he seemed so relaxed and detached was because he knew I was only trying to get him to negotiate.
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It's impossible to know for sure whether Putin was being serious in his comment, but relations between the U.K. and Russia were already strained before the war. This was especially true after a Russian nerve agent attack in the U.K. in 2018. The U.K.'s strong support of Kyiv has only made tensions worse.
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According to Britain's Ministry of Defense, Russian authorities are likely keeping open the option of another round of call-ups under its "partial mobilisation" program.
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The Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released an intelligence update suggesting that Russian border guards are preventing Kyrgyz migrant workers with dual passports from leaving Russia. According to media reports last week, the Russian guards have told the men that their names are on mobilization lists.
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On Jan. 23, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the decree on the partial mobilization, announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin last September, "continues to remain in force." The ministry claimed that the decree remained necessary for supporting the work of the Armed Forces.
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The British ministry has stated that observers had questioned why the measure had not been formally rescinded, adding that the Russian leadership is highly likely to continue searching for ways to meet the high number of personnel required to resource any future major offensive in Ukraine, while minimizing domestic dissent.
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There is growing speculation that Putin could announce another mobilization wave, following the Russian defense ministry’s recent announcement that it plans to increase its combat personnel to 1.5 million people, from a current reported level of around 1.1 million.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has urged allies to provide weapons supplies more quickly, as fighting in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the Donetsk region, remains intense.
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"The situation is very tough," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday. "Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defense."
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"We are doing everything we can to make sure that our forces are stronger than the occupiers' assault capabilities. It is very important to maintain the support of our partners in this defense effort. The speed of supply is one of the key factors in this war."
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"Russia is hoping to prolong the war and exhaust our forces. So we need to use time as our weapon. We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine," he said.
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Last week, Ukraine's allies Germany and the U.S. agreed to send Kyiv dozens of tanks, with other allies in Europe pledging to send their own German-made tanks as well.

The U.K. is also sending British tanks to Ukraine. Ukraine's ambassador to France, Vadym Omelchenko, said on Friday that 321 Western tanks are set to be delivered to Ukraine.
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At the weekend, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted that fighter jets would not be provided to Ukraine. He told a German newspaper that there should not be a "bidding war" over weaponry and that Germany "will not allow a war between Russia and NATO."
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Scholz reiterated Germany's objections to sending fighter jets to Ukraine, telling the Tagesspiegel newspaper Sunday that there is no question of doing so. He said that Germany does not want to get involved in a military conflict in Ukraine.
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"The question of combat aircraft is not relevant," Scholz said, according to Politico's translation of the original story.
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"I would advise against entering into a constant competition to outbid each other when it comes to weapons systems," he added.
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Germany agreed last week to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, after months of resisting pressure to do so. Berlin also said it would allow other allies to send their own German-made tanks to Kyiv. The U.S. also agreed to send a number of M1 Abrams tanks.
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Ukraine expressed gratitude for the decision to send tanks but immediately said it needed more firepower to counter Russia’s invasion, asking for fighter jets from its allies. One defense ministry advisor told CNBC that Kyiv should receive F-16 fighter jets from its allies without delay, as there was over tanks.
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Over the weekend, another Ukrainian official said that negotiations over the possible sending of attack aircraft to Ukraine were still ongoing.
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Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the Office of the President, told the Freedom TV channel Saturday that our partners understand how the war develops.

They understand that attack aircraft are absolutely necessary to cover the manpower and armoured vehicles that they give us.
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Podolyak stated that in order to reduce the key tool of the Russian army - artillery, missiles are needed. He went on to say that negotiations are already underway and are accelerating.
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Over the weekend, Ukrainian tank crews arrived in the U.K. to begin training on Challenger 2 tanks that Britain has provided to the country. This will help Ukraine to build up its own tank capabilities and better defend itself against Russian aggression.
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The U.K. said it would provide 14 tanks earlier in January. Last week, the U.S. and Germany announced that they would also provide tanks.
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Tank crews in Ukraine will be trained to operate and maintain the new tanks that will be delivered by March. This will ensure that the tanks are used effectively and efficiently.