On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War II and backed a plan to seize large swaths of Ukraine, telling the West that he was not kidding when he claimed he would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.
Mr Putin raised the spectre of nuclear war, approved a plan to grab a section of Ukraine the size of Hungary, and called up 300,000 reservists in the largest escalation of the Ukraine war since Moscow’s February 24 invasion.
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff,” The Russian president said in a televised address.
Mr Putin accused the West of trying to destroy his country, indulging in “nuclear blackmail” by purportedly considering the use of nuclear weapons against Moscow, and accused the US, the European Union, and Britain of urging Ukraine to expand military operations into Russia itself.
“In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line,” Putin said. “This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”
The talk, which came in the aftermath of a key Russian battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, fueled speculation about the war’s path and the 69-year-old Kremlin chief’s future and demonstrated Mr Putin was doubling down on his “special military operation” in Ukraine.
In effect, Mr Putin is hoping that by raising the potential of a direct confrontation between the US-led NATO military alliance and Russia — a step toward World War Three — the West will reconsider its support for Ukraine, which it has not done so far.
Shortly after Mr Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that Russia would draft 300,000 additional soldiers from the 25 million prospective combatants at its disposal — the first mobilization since the Soviet Union fought Nazi Germany in World War II.
