Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West that Russia is technically prepared for nuclear war and has warned the United States that if it sent troops to Ukraine, Moscow would treat it as a military intervention. The Kremlin chief has also accused Ukraine of trying to interfere with his attacks on Russian territory in this weekend’s presidential election, which he will undoubtedly win. Kyiv has launched a widespread drone and missile attack since Monday night, days before Russian citizens vote on March 15, 16 and 17.
Putin repeated the warning he issued to the West in his annual state of the nation address last month: Russia is technically prepared to wage a nuclear war, he said.
In an interview with state television Rossiya-1 and the state agency Ría Nóvosti, the Russian president linked this idea with the possibility of Western countries allied with Kyiv sending troops to Ukraine, as suggested in controversial statements in February by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.
“From a military-technical point of view, we are ready,” Putin said. And he explained that the United States, Ukraine’s main supporter, has understood that if it were to deploy American troops in Ukraine, Russia would treat it as an intervention.
At one point in the interview, the journalist asks him if Russia and the United States are playing a “game of chicken” and if, since neither of them is willing to back away, a collision is going to be inevitable. Putin responds with some optimism, saying that he does not believe he is heading towards the feared nuclear clash.
In the United States “there are enough specialists in Russian-American relations and in the field of strategic moderation. That is why I do not believe that (nuclear confrontation) is coming, but we are prepared for it,” he stated.
On the other hand, Putin criticized the decision of Finland and Sweden to join NATO. According to him, for these two countries, this “is an absolutely meaningless step from the point of view of securing their own national interests.”
The Russian president pointed out that as a consequence of the step taken, Russia will have to reinforce its border with Finland, at 1,340 kilometers the longest with Russia of a NATO country. “We didn’t have troops there, but now we will have them. There were no destruction systems there, and now they will appear,” said the head of the Kremlin.
In the same interview, Putin assured that, after its failures on the battle front, Ukraine needs to prove something with this week’s attacks against Russian territory.
On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have shot down 25 drones over seven Russian regions. Two of these unmanned aircraft set fire to a major refinery near Nizhny Novgorod (Volga) and a fuel depot in the Oryol region. Three Russian anti-Putin militias based in Ukraine attempted to penetrate Russian territory through Belgorod and Kursk. They maintain that they succeeded, but Moscow claims that it rejected them and caused hundreds of casualties.
“However, the main goal, I have no doubt, is, if not to disrupt the presidential elections in Russia, then at least to somehow interfere in the normal process of expressing the will of citizens,” the Russian leader said.
He added that they are also looking for an “informational effect.” “And thirdly, if at least something turns out, to have some opportunity, some argument, some trump card in a possible future negotiation process,” he concluded.
While some excerpts from Putin’s interview were broadcast, this Wednesday Ukrainian drones continued to fly over Russian territory in search of targets to destroy.
The Ministry of Defense claimed to have shot down 65 drones in six Russian regions on Wednesday. Most of them reached the Voronezh, Belgorod and Kursk oblasts, border regions of Ukraine. According to the RBK newspaper website, during the night there were attacks on refineries in the Ryazan oblast, and also in Leningrad oblast, which surrounds Saint Petersburg.
A Ryazan refinery caught fire and several injured people had to be hospitalized, the Tass agency reported. In Leningrad, drones attacked the Kinef refinery, which is operating normally.
Putin also spoke about Poland and the possibility of this country sending troops to Ukraine. According to him, Warsaw’s objective would not be to defend the neighboring country, but to annex part of it, an idea heard among publicists and allied officials of the Russian president.
“If Polish troops enter the territory of Ukraine to cover the Ukrainian-Belarusian border or in some other places to liberate Ukrainian military contingents […] I think Polish troops would never leave there,” Putin explained, adding that “they want to reclaim the lands they consider historically theirs.”
That movement, in his opinion, would “set an example” to other countries that lost territories after World War II. “And I think the geopolitical consequences for Ukraine, even in terms of preserving its statehood in its current form, would certainly be presented in all their glory,” she stressed.
There is no shadow of a doubt that Vladimir Putin, 71, will win next weekend’s three-day presidential election. Re-election will allow him, thanks to the 2020 constitutional reform, to remain in power until 2030 and then run for another term until May 2036. Then, Putin would be 83 years old and would have been in power much longer than all the other leaders. Russians and Soviets, including Joseph Stalin.
