Putin warns West of risk of nuclear war, says Moscow can strike Western targets

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western countries on Feb 29 that there was a genuine risk of nuclear war if they sent their own troops to fight in Ukraine, and said Moscow had the weapons to strike targets in the West.

The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Addressing Parliament and other members of the country's elite, Mr Putin, 71, repeated his accusation that the West is bent on weakening Russia.

He suggested Western leaders did not understand how dangerous their meddling could be in what he cast as Russia's own internal affairs.

He prefaced his warning with a specific reference to an idea, floated by French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb 26, of

European Nato members sending ground troops to Ukraine

. That suggestion was quickly rejected by the United States, Germany, Britain and others.

“(Western nations) must realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?!” said Mr Putin.

Speaking ahead of a mid-March presidential election in which he is certain to be re-elected for another six-year term, he lauded what he said was Russia's vastly modernised nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world.

“Strategic nuclear forces are in a state of full readiness,” he said, noting that new-generation hypersonic nuclear weapons he first spoke about in 2018 had either been deployed or were at a stage where development and testing were being completed.

Visibly angry, Mr Putin suggested that Western politicians recall the fate of those like Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler and France's Napoleon Bonaparte, who unsuccessfully invaded his country in the past.

“But now the consequences will be far more tragic,” said the Russian leader. “They think it (war) is a cartoon,” he said, accusing Western politicians of forgetting what real war meant because they had not faced the same security challenges that Russians had in the last three decades.

More troops for western border

Russian forces now had the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine and were advancing in several places, Mr Putin said.

Russia must also boost the troops it has deployed along its western borders with the European Union after Finland and Sweden decided to join the Nato military alliance, he added.

During his speech, Mr Putin praised his troops fighting in Ukraine as “courageous” warriors who would not back down.

“I look at these courageous people, sometimes very young guys, and without any exaggeration I can say my heart fills with pride. They will not back down, will not fail and will not betray,” Mr Putin said.

The veteran Kremlin leader dismissed Western suggestions that Russian forces might go beyond Ukraine and attack European countries as “nonsense”.

He also said Moscow would not repeat the mistake of the Soviet Union and allow the West to “drag” it into an arms race that would eat up too much of its budget.

“Therefore, our task is to develop the defence-industrial complex in such a way as to increase the scientific, technological and industrial potential of the country,” he said.

Mr Putin said Moscow was open to discussions on nuclear strategic stability with the US, but suggested that Washington had no genuine interest in such talks and was more focused on making false claims about Moscow’s alleged aims.

“Recently there have been more and more unsubstantiated accusations against Russia – for example, that we are allegedly going to deploy nuclear weapons in space. Such innuendo... is a ploy to draw us into negotiations on their terms, which are favourable only to the US,” he said.

“On the eve of the US presidential election, they simply want to show their citizens and everyone else that they still rule the world.” REUTERS, AFP