Johnson was expected to announce his resignation after he was abandoned by ministers and his Conservative Party's lawmakers who said he was no longer fit to govern. The Kremlin said it too was no fan of the British leader, whose parents named him Boris after a White Russian emigre.

"He doesn't like us, we don't like him either," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said reports that Johnson would shortly resign as prime minister were of little concern for the Kremlin.

Other Russians were more brutal.

Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska said on Telegram that it was an "inglorious end" for a "stupid clown" whose conscience would be blighted by "tens of thousands of lives in this senseless conflict in Ukraine".

Maria Zakharova, the top spokeswoman in Russia's foreign ministry, said Johnson's fall was a symptom of the decline of the West, which she said was riven by political, ideological and economic crisis.

"The moral of the story is: do not seek to destroy Russia," Zakharova said. "Russia cannot be destroyed. You can break your teeth on it - and then choke on them."

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