The Kremlin says it hopes that the U.K.’s next leader will be “more professional,” after Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned as the country’s ruling Conservative Party leader Thursday.
The politician will remain as a “caretaker” Prime Minister until elections are held later this year.
“We would like to hope that someday in Great Britain more professional people who can make decisions through dialogue will come to power,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “But at the moment, there is little hope for that.”
“He [Johnson] really does not like us,” Peskov said of the soon-to-be-former British leader, “and we do not like him either.”
The U.K. leader has been one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. Johnson has visited the Ukrainian capital twice since the war began to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Relations between Moscow and London also deteriorated as the British government sanctioned dozens of wealthy, Kremlin-connected Russians following the offensive.
“The clown has gone,” parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Telegram after the British politician’s resignation.
“Boris Johnson is behind the shelling of our peaceful cities: Belgorod, Kursk. The British people should know that.”
“He is one of the main ideologists who believes that Kyiv should fight against Russia to the last Ukrainian. It is only right for European leaders to think about where such a policy leads.”
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev also weighed in, writing on Telegram that “Ukraine’s ‘best friends’ are leaving.”
“Victory” is in danger!” he added, saying that Johnson’s resignation was the result of “British arrogance and mediocre policy.”
