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Boris Johnson is said to have used a French accent to “gently ridicule” President Emmanuel Macron’s views on Ukraine during a speech to Republicans in Texas.
The former Tory prime minister spoke at a private lunch in Dallas, where he called on America’s right-wing conservatives to “get on with it” and insisted they were “backing the right horse” by supporting Ukraine. Were.
According to Politico, Mr Johnson told the audience, “I urge all of you to stick with it – it will pay off in a big way in the long run.”
The former PM said: “You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win. They are going to defeat Putin.
Mr Johnson is said to have “gently joked” at Macron with a mock-French accent as he quoted his remarks about not “insulting” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think it was my French friend and colleague Emmanuel Macron who said ‘Putin should not be humiliated,’” he told a group of Republican politicians and donors.
“I think it has a lot to do with clearly offending Vladimir Putin,” he said. “I don’t think it’s our job to worry about Vladimir Putin’s ego, or his political prospects, or his career growth.”
Mr Johnson called Mr Macron a “Putin sycophant” after the French president criticized the then prime minister’s response to Ukraine’s refugee crisis, according to a former top Number 10 official.
In his podcast, Guto Harri, the former director of communications, said Mr Johnson called Mr Macron “a four-letter word that starts with C”. phenomenal,
Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, have expressed their skepticism about their support for Ukraine.
But Mr Johnson told Republicans there was “every expectation that the Ukrainians would be able to deliver a very significant counterattack this summer”, adding that there was “the potential for a complete Russian military collapse”.
Joe Biden recently told fellow leaders at the G7 summit that the US would support providing fighter jets, including American-made F-16 jets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the decision “a great increase in our forces in the sky”.
Mr Johnson earned around £5m in outside income last year, mostly from the lucrative speaking circuit, on top of the £84,000 salary he still receives as a backbench MP. But he is believed not to have been paid for the speech in Dallas.
