In December 2017 , Johnson told '' The Sunday Times '' newspaper , " I was reading Thucydides ' '' History of the Peloponnesian War '' . It was obvious to me that Athens and its democracy , its openness , its culture and civilisation was the analogue of the United States and the West . Russia for me was closed , nasty , militaristic and antidemocratic — like Sparta . " Following the May 2018 Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury , an act which the UK government blamed on Russia , Johnson compared Vladimir Putin 's hosting of the World Cup in Russia to Adolf Hitler 's hosting of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 . Russia 's Foreign Ministry denounced Johnson 's " unacceptable and unworthy " parallel towards Russia , a " nation that lost millions of lives in fighting Nazism "
Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Boris Johnson