Putin warns West against sending troops to Ukraine

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has warned Western countries against sending troops to Ukraine.

The consequences of such a de­cision would be “tragic”, he said.

In his annual state of the nation address, President Putin accused the West of trying to drag Russia into an arms race.

At the same time, he said that Russia needed to strengthen its de­fences on its western border now that Sweden and Finland were joining Nato.

President Putin said the West “provoked” the conflict in Ukraine and “continues to lie, without any embarrassment, saying that Russia allegedly intends to attack Europe”.

Probably referring to comments by French President, Emmanuel Macron, earlier this week that sending Nato ground troops to Ukraine “could not be excluded”, President Putin said: “The conse­quences for possible intervention­ists will be… tragic.”

“We also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory,” he added.

“All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?”

Several Nato countries, includ­ing the US, Germany and the UK, ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine.

President Putin also boast­ed about Russia’s sophisticated weapons – such as hypersonic aircraft and unmanned underwater vehicles – and said that Russia’s strategic nuclear forces are in a “state of full readiness”.

Notably, President Putin ex­plicitly referred to the two years of fighting in Ukraine as a “war”, despite his repeated insistence that Russia’s invasion should be described as a “special military operation”.

He said that an “absolute majority” of Russians supported his decision to invade Ukraine, and that the Russian people were now united against what he called Western attempts to weaken the country.

He also hit out at accusations from the US that Russia is devel­oping nuclear weapons for use against satellites in space.

The speech came just over two weeks before Russia’s presidential election, in which President Putin is widely expected to win a fifth term in office.

Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the address could, “to a large degree, be seen as (Putin’s)election programme”.

Indeed, much of the address fo­cused on domestic issues ranging from the modernisation of the tax system to pensions and incentives aimed at boosting Russia’s dwin­dling birth rate.

He also talked about the need to improve the health of the nation, announcing a series of measures aimed at boosting Russia’s life ex­pectancy, which at 70 is currently one of the lowest in Europe.

Urging people to focus on phys­ical activity and cut down alcohol consumption, he joked: “Stop drinking and start skiing!”

—BBC

The post Putin warns West against sending troops to Ukraine appeared first on Ghanaian Times.

Read Full Story