Putin warns of nuclear conflict if West’s intervention continues

MOSCOW: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States, the New York Times reported.

Putin said NATO countries that were helping Ukraine strike Russian territory or might consider sending their own troops “must, in the end, understand” that “all this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.”

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“We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory,” Putin said. “Do they not understand this?”

The Russian leader alluded to comments by President Emmanuel Macron of France this week raising the possibility of sending troops from NATO countries to Ukraine, a scenario the Kremlin said would lead to the “inevitability” of a direct conflict between Russia and the Western alliance.

The United States and other Western governments have largely tried to distance themselves from Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, and Macron’s remarks about the possibility of Western troops being sent to Ukraine drew quick rebukes from other Western officials, who have ruled out such deployments.

Putin, however, considers Russian-occupied Ukraine to be Russian territory, and he seized on Macron’s remarks to amplify his threat. “We remember the fate of those who once sent their contingents to the territory of our country,” Putin said, an apparent reference to the invasions of Hitler and Napoleon. “But now the consequences for potential interventionists will be much more tragic.”

Putin’s threats on Thursday came in the opening minutes of his annual state-of-the-nation speech, a keystone event in the Kremlin calendar in which the president declares his plans and priorities in a televised address to hundreds of officials, lawmakers and other members of Russia’s ruling elite.

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This year, the speech took on added significance because of Russia’s presidential elections, scheduled for March 15-17, in which Putin is running for another six-year term. He is assured of winning, but the Kremlin has mounted a concerted publicity campaign ahead of the vote, seeking to use it as a stamp of public approval for Putin’s rule, and by extension, his war.

The speech came at a geopolitically delicate time: More than two years into the war, Russia has taken the initiative on the battlefield, military aid is stalled in the US Congress, and Western governments are at odds over how best to support Ukraine.