David Cameron brands Putin a 'phenomenal liar' who lied over shooting down MH17

9 March 2022, 18:40 | Updated: 9 March 2022, 20:24

Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "phenomenal liar".

Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr, Mr Cameron recalled "confronting" Putin over Russian troops being deployed to the Donbass region.

The former PM also claimed Putin "flat out lied" to him when he was confronted about the shooting down of the Malaysian airline MH17, which killed 283 people.

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David Cameron brands Vladimir Putin a 'phenomenal liar'

When asked by Andrew Marr about his "uncanny" prediction 14 years ago that Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine, Mr Cameron responded: "Well in 2008 Putin took advantage of a situation in Georgia and effectively invaded that country and I went as leader of the opposition to see and try to give my support to Georgia which was defending its own country.

"And I said then if we don't react strongly to this there will be further such incidents and what happened after 2008, I was not Prime Minister then, was the international response to what happened in Georgia was feeble nothing was done.

"I would contrast that very strongly with what happened in 2014 when I was Prime Minister with the events of Crimea and the Donbass where we threw, I led this, Putin out of the G8, introduced sanctions started to train and arm the Ukrainian army."

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He went on to recall a Second World War awards ceremony Putin joined him for in London, whereby he saw his true nature.

"It was after that when he let his guard down and said 'fundamentally, I'm not a democrat and I don't share your interests', and I never had any belief that he did," Mr Cameron said.

"He also was a phenomenal liar. I am remember confronting him with evidence that Russian troops were in the Donbass - he flat out lied.

"I remember confronting him with evidence about the shooting down of the Malaysian airline - he flat out lied."

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Mr Cameron also called for permanent NATO armed force bases to be set up in the Baltic states, amid the Ukraine invasion.

He said: "We were the first government to send troops into Baltic states for patrolling, lets have some permanent bases. If they want them, I think that expansion and change to NATO because of the risk we face [from Russia].

He recalled in 2014 he and former US president Obama wanted visible troops in countries such as Latvia and Estonia so that "the Russians knew if they attacked that the guarantee of mutual defence was absolutely meant seriously".