Vladimir Putin, the president, warned Western nations on Thursday that sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine would put them at risk of starting a nuclear conflict and that Moscow has the means to attack Western targets.
The crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West is at its worst since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was brought on by the war in Ukraine. Although Putin has warned before about the risks of a direct conflict between Russia and NATO, his threat on Thursday was one of his clearest.
Speaking to parliamentarians and other dignitaries, Putin, 71, reiterated his charge that the West was determined to undermine Russia and implied that Western officials were unaware of the potential consequences of their intervention in what he perceived as Russia’s domestic affairs.
He specifically mentioned the notion that European NATO nations should send ground troops to Ukraine, which was put out by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and swiftly dismissed by the US, Germany, the UK, and other countries, before issuing his nuclear threat.
“(Western countries) have to acknowledge that we possess weapons capable of hitting targets within their borders.” With the use of nuclear weapons and the potential for civilization to be destroyed, all of this seriously threatens a confrontation. “Don’t they realize that?” exclaimed Putin.
Speaking ahead of the March 15–17 presidential election, in which he will almost certainly be re-elected for a second six-year term, he praised Russia for having the most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world.
He declared, “Strategic nuclear forces are in a state of full readiness,” adding that the new generation of hypersonic nuclear weapons he had mentioned in 2018 had either been deployed or were in the process of being developed and tested.
Putin, who was clearly furious, advised Western leaders to consider what happened to leaders who had previously attempted unsuccessful invasions of Russia, such as Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Napoleon Bonaparte of France.
Putin remarked, “But now, the consequences will be far more tragic.”
He claimed that because Western politicians had not experienced the same security issues as Russians over the previous three decades, they had forgotten what genuine war entailed. “They think it (war) is a cartoon,” he stated.
