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After Macron touted troops to Ukraine, Putin warns West of nuclear war risk

The Russian president, in a state of the nation address, upped the ante on Thursday. Should the world be worried about his threat?

Aljazeera, By Mansur Mirovalev, 1 Mar 2024

President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if Western powers send soldiers to within striking distance of Russia.

His comments on Thursday, in a state of the nation address, were the kind of remarks usually uttered by Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012 and prime minister until becoming a top security official in 2020………………….

Putin has now upped the ante, responding to French President Emmanuel Macron’s assumption on Monday that a deployment of European troops to Ukraine cannot be “ruled out”………………..

The West has “announced the possibility of sending Western military contingents to Ukraine,” Putin said on Thursday. “The consequences for possible interventionists will be way more tragic.

“They should eventually realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. Everything that the West comes up with creates the real threat of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilisation,” he said.

Moscow has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal including a new generation of hypersonic missiles and several times more tactical nuclear weapons than the collective West.

“Now it is Putin who clearly draws a red line about using the nukes,” Kushch said, adding that Macron had probed Putin’s reaction on when Moscow would be ready to launch the nukes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/1/how-real-is-putins-threat-to-nuke-the-west

March 3, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war