Russian President Vladimir Putin has sworn his country to a conflict with the NATO states and reiterated his warnings about the danger of nuclear war. Two weeks before the presidential election, Putin sent strong words to the United States and its allies in his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Thursday. He repeated his claim that the West wanted to divide Russia from within. According to Putin’s propaganda, the war in Ukraine is a NATO instrument to weaken Russia.
In response to the debate initiated by French President Emmanuel Macron about deploying NATO ground troops to Ukraine, Putin said the consequences of such a move could be “tragic.” He repeated previous threats, saying the West risked a nuclear conflict.
Western states should remember that Russia also has weapons that could hit targets on their territory, he said in Moscow to more than a thousand representatives from politics, business, culture and religion. Putin stressed that escalation and the use of nuclear weapons could lead to the “extinction of civilization.” It wasn’t a “cartoon film,” he said. “Don’t you understand?”
Several countries have distanced themselves from statements made by French President Macron
Putin referred to statements by French President Macron without naming him. After a meeting with allies on Monday evening in Paris, he said: “There is no consensus today about officially sending ground troops. But nothing can be ruled out in the dynamic. We will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia does not win this war can.”
It is not the first time that Putin has recalled Russia’s nuclear weapons. He has been using this method as a deterrent for years. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and now one of the hardliners among Russian propagandists, had already reacted to Macron’s statements on Wednesday. “Combined with the recent desire to share France’s nuclear arsenal with all willing Europeans, Macron’s oral diarrhea appears to have become a persistent and painful problem,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.
Several countries, including the USA and Great Britain, immediately distanced themselves from Macron’s statements. Particularly clear rejection came from Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “As German Chancellor, I will not send soldiers from our Bundeswehr to Ukraine,” he said in a video published on Wednesday. “NATO is not – and will not be – a party to war. It remains that way,” he added. He doesn’t want Russia’s war against Ukraine to turn into a war between Russia and NATO.
Putin’s speech was followed closely in Berlin. Several members of the Bundestag warned against allowing themselves to be intimidated by Putin. The CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen, for example, told the newspapers of the Funke media group: “It is a serious mistake to make Putin’s threats the benchmark for our actions. Putin rightly perceives this as weakness, and our weakness encourages Putin to make the next threat or use of force.” Röttgen emphasized: “Nuclear weapons are not an option for him because he would lose China as his most important ally and the American deterrent is working.”
The conflict in Transnistria was also an issue for German observers. “Even if Transnistria did not play a role in Putin’s speech today, one must expect that yesterday’s call from Tiraspol will be used at the right opportunity to attempt to secede Transnistria from the Republic of Moldova,” said Nils Schmid, the SPD’s foreign policy spokesman parliamentary group in the Bundestag. “We must oppose this and do everything we can to further stabilize Moldova, preserve its territorial integrity and continue to support its EU accession efforts. The same applies to Ukraine, which we must continue to support in its defensive fight against the Russian aggressor to stop Putin’s expansionist ambitions.”
Putin spent most of his two-hour speech, which was broadcast live on Russian television, on domestic political issues and social promises to the people. So he announced a new national support program for families. He pledged a trillion rubles (around ten billion euros) in new budget funds to modernize the healthcare system. The confirmation of the president in the vote on March 17 is considered certain: no opposition is permitted.