The Kremlin has swiped a parting jibe at UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying they don't like him as he resigns today.
Speaking during a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "He doesn't like us, we don't like him either".
Peskov said that reports that Johnson would shortly resign as prime minister were of little concern for the Kremlin.
Johnson is set to quit with staff in Number 10 drafting his resignation letter while he prepares to address the nation today.
The disgraced leader will remain at Downing Street until a successor is in place, expected to be by the time of the Conservative Party conference in October.
The PM has been hit with a flurry of resignations this morning - as the new Education Secretary quit and his Chancellor told him to do the right thing.
More than 50 Tories have quit the government - ranging from from Cabinet ministers to aides and moderates to Red Wallers.
Johnson has previously been labelled “the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian” by Moscow amid an emergency NATO summit that took place in Brussels last week.
The PM hit back at these claims that came earlier in the day from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when he was quoted by state-owned RIA news agency.
He said: “As for Mr Johnson, we see him as the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian. It will lead to a foreign policy dead end.”
Speaking at the press conference in Brussels, Boris Johnson hit back at these claims, and in typical fashion, made a joke.
He said: "Absolutely not, least of all me.
“I think I'm probably the only Prime Minister in UK history to be called Boris, I think I have that distinction, and I'm not remotely anti-Russian."
He said: "But I think what we all agree is that what Vladimir Putin is doing, the way he's leading Russia at the moment, is utterly catastrophic, that his invasion of Ukraine is inhuman and barbaric.
"And the conduct of that invasion is now moving into the type of behaviour that, as I said before, we haven't seen in the continent of Europe for 80 years, and it's horrific.
"So you can be sympathetic towards ordinary Russians, who are being so badly led, but you can be deeply hostile to the decisions of Vladimir Putin.”
Johnson’s actions so far have proved immensely popular in Ukraine, and at the emergency summit, he did not rule out Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky ’s please for “One per cent of all your planes, one per cent of all your tanks”.
Despite hesitancy amongst allies he did not refuse outright, instead saying it would prove “logistically” challenging.
Speaking to reporters, he said: "What President Zelensky wants is to try to relieve Mariupol and to help the thousands of Ukrainian fighters in the city. To that end he does need armour as he sees it.
"We are looking at what we can do to help. But logistically it looks very difficult both with armour and with jets."
