Vladimir Putin claimed Ukraine is on the cusp of running out of willing soldiers while referring to a debunked theory about ex-PM Boris Johnson.
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, the president “pointed out that ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had said at some point that Ukraine ‘needs to keep fighting until the last Ukrainian’.”
Speaking during today’s four-hour joint phone-in and press conference, Putin then said: “So this is what they are doing – fighting. They will soon run out of Ukrainians willing to fight.”
But there is no online record of Johnson saying this.
This is part of a wider conspiracy theory – often repeated by the Kremlin – that the ex-PM had derailed potential peace talks about Ukraine and Russia during the early stages of the war.
Johnson debunked these claims in The Times in January this year, saying the theory was “total nonsense” and “Russian propaganda”.
He said that he had “expressed concerns” about the nature of any such agreement but mainly reiterated the UK’s unwavering support for Ukraine.
Johnson told the newspaper: “No peace proposals or peace agreement were possible in February or March 2022.
“Russia entered Ukraine solely for the sake of seizing territories, killing citizens and overthrowing a democratic government.”
It was also Ukraine’s then military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who told Sky News in 2022 that his country would defend itself “until the last drop of blood”.
This was not the only dubious claim Putin made during his press conference today.
He also alleged: “It appears that as many Ukrainians are residing in Russia as in Ukraine, if not even more. I am not kidding – this is entirely possible.
“I am talking about the people in the newly incorporated territories, in Crimea. And those who moved to our country, these are millions of individuals.
“And overall, we have approximately the same number of Ukrainians as in Ukraine.
“By the way, we welcome this – of course, these are individuals of our culture, they are essentially part of our nation.”
Russia currently occupies around 20% of Ukraine, and around 6 million Ukrainians live there, according to Kyiv – but Ukraine’s total population is closer to 38 million.