Putin warns West of risk of nuclear war, says Russia can strike Western targets, risk same fates as Hitler, Napoleon
The Russian leader also said his troops are ready for combat.
“The combat capabilities of the armed forces have increased multifold. Our units firmly hold the initiative [in Ukraine]. They are confidently advancing in a number of operational directions, liberating new territories,” he said.
Putin also stated that the war in Ukraine was about defending sovereign Russian territory.
“Today, when our homeland is defending its sovereignty and security and protecting the lives of our fellow countrymen in Donbas and Novorossiya (regions of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed), the decisive role in this righteous struggle belongs to our citizens, our unity, devotion to our native country and responsibility for its fate.”
“We did not start this war in Donbas. As I have said many times, we will do everything to end it, to eradicate Nazism. To fulfil all the tasks of the special military operation. To protect the sovereignty and security of our citizens.”
Putin, who was speaking ahead of a March 15-17 presidential election when he is certain to be re-elected for another six-year term, lauded what he said was Russia’s vastly modernised nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world.
09:43
Ukraine war two years on: disease, displacement and demands for aid
“We understand that the West is trying to drag us into an arms race. They are trying to wear us down, to repeat the trick they succeeded [in pulling off] with the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
“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.”
The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Putin has previously warned of the dangers of a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia.
Visibly angry, Putin, Russia’s paramount leader for more than two decades, suggested 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 Putin. “They think it [war] is a cartoon,” he said.
Putin said Russia’s economy would soon be among the world’s four largest in terms of purchasing power parity.
Boasting vast natural resources, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) rebounded sharply last year from a slump in 2022, but the growth relies heavily on state-funded arms and ammunition production for the war in Ukraine, masking problems that are hampering an improvement in Russians’ living standards.