Kremlin: There was no missile threat to Boris

RUSSIA has said Boris Johnson lied when he alleged Vladimir Putin had threatened to kill him.

- Mark Reynolds

The ex-Prime Minister claimed the threat occurred in an "extraordinary" phone call between them last year - but the Kremlin dismissed that notion as fantasy.

Asked about Mr Johnson's claim to the BBC, senior spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused him of lying adding that what he said about Putin and missiles was not true, or "more precisely, a lie.

"Either a deliberate falsehood, in which case you need to ask Mr Johnson why he lied, or it was not a deliberate lie. That is, he didn't understand what President Putin was saying to him. There were no threats to use missiles."

Such an exchange was not in accounts of the call as released by Downing Street aides. With all official calls, there are always minutes taken by a No 10 official and retained for the archive.