Putin threatened NATO with nuclear weapons: Tragic consequences

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Putin threatened NATO with nuclear weapons: "Tragic consequences"

Joachim Kerpner

Published 2024-02-29 10.40

Vladimir Putin threatened on Thursday with nuclear weapons if NATO sends troops to Ukraine:

- The consequences will be tragic, he said.

He also promised an expanded Russian defense in the west, after Sweden's entry into NATO.
 

Quick version

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening NATO with nuclear weapons if the organization sends troops to Ukraine, claiming the consequences would be tragic.
• He also emphasizes the need to strengthen Russia's defenses in the west, after Sweden recently joined NATO.
• Putin believes that Russia's security is threatened by NATO's eastern expansion, and accuses the West of provoking conflicts. 
  

At his annual address to the nation in the Kremlin on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Sweden's NATO entry:

- We must strengthen our defense in the west, to neutralize the threats from NATO's eastern expansion, where they have drawn Sweden and Finland into their alliance.

- The West has provoked conflicts in Ukraine, in the Middle East and other regions of the world, and they continue to lie.

- Now they claim without shame that Russia is ready to attack Europe. But we know it's just talk - while they select targets to attack on our territory, Putin said.

The Russian ruler also welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal to send troops to Ukraine. Putin referred to the losses suffered by Nazi Germany's army in the Soviet Union during World War II:

- They have started talking about sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine. But we remember what fate befell those who sent their troops to our territory once upon a time. Today, the consequences for intruders will be even more tragic.

In the next breath, Putin threatened the West with Russian nuclear weapons. But in the Russian president's narrative, it was Macron's proposal that risked leading to a third world war:

- They must understand that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. And that all that they are threatening the world with now, that it is a reality. They are threatening a conflict in which nuclear weapons are used, in which our entire civilization is annihilated. Don't they get it? Putin said and continued:

- Those people who have not gone through any difficult trials, they have already forgotten what war is.

- While we, even our current generation, have gone through such difficult trials during the fight against international terrorism in the Caucasus as now, during the conflict in Ukraine.

- They seem to think it's like a cartoon. What to say? It is true that Russian hatred, like other kinds of racism and thoughts of national supremacy, blinds them and rids them of all reason.

- The actions of the USA and its satellites have in practice led to the dismantling of European security. It creates risks for everyone, Vladimir Putin claimed.

Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP