In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks with heads of International news agencies in Saint Petersburg on 5 June 2024. (Valentina Pevtcova / POOL / AFP)
- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned he could deploy missiles within
striking distance of the US and its European allies. - This is in response to Western weapons allowing Ukraine to strike deeper
into Russia. - Putin also highlighted the possibility of using nuclear weapons
according to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, urging the West not to underestimate
this threat.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he could deploy conventional
missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies
if they allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western
weapons.
Putin,
in his first face-to-face meeting with senior editors of international news
agencies, since the war in Ukraine began, said the West was wrong to assume
Russia would never use nuclear weapons and said the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine
should not be taken lightly.
When
asked about NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg’s calls to allow Ukraine to use Western
weapons to strike Russian territory, Putin differentiated between different
missiles but warned allowing Kyiv to strike Russia with ever more powerful
weapons was a serious escalation that was drawing the West towards a war with
Russia.
Russia’s
response, the 71-year-old Kremlin chief said, would be to shoot down the
Western missiles, and specifically mentioned US ATACMS, and British and French
missile systems.
Putin
also said Moscow was considering deploying similar high-technology, long-range
missiles close enough to strike the states that allowed Ukraine to strike
Russian territory with such missiles.
“If
we see that these countries are being drawn into a war against the Russian
Federation, then we reserve the right to act in the same way. In general, this
is a path to very serious problems,” Putin said.
Putin
did not give specifics of where he was considering delivering such missiles.
President
Joe Biden authorised Kyiv to launch some US-supplied weapons at military
targets inside Russia. Washington still prohibits Kyiv from striking Russia
with ATACMS, which have a range of up to 300 km, and other long-range US-supplied
weapons.
British
Foreign Secretary David Cameron, during a visit to Kyiv on 3 May, told Reuters
Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by Britain to strike targets
inside Russia, and it was up to Kyiv whether to do so.
Nuclear risk
Speaking
to journalists for more than three hours at the newly built 81-floor Gazprom
tower ahead of the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin
touched on subjects from the war in Gaza to the upcoming US election.
In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with heads of International news agencies in Saint Petersburg on 5 June 2024. (Valentina Pevtcova / POOL / AFP)
“No
one in the United States is interested in Ukraine, they are interested in the
greatness of the United States, which is fighting not for Ukraine and the
Ukrainian people, but for its own greatness.”
Putin
said Russia did not care who the next US president was but said the US court
system was clearly being used in a political battle against Republican nominee
Donald Trump.
“They
are burning themselves from the inside, their state, their political system …
It is obvious all over the world that the prosecution of Trump, especially in
court on charges that were formed on the basis of events that happened years
ago, without direct proof, is simply using the judicial system in an internal
political struggle,” said Putin.
More
than two years into the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two, Putin
is increasingly talking of the risk of a global conflict as the West grapples
with what to do about the advance of Russian troops in Ukraine.
When
asked about the risk of nuclear war, Putin said Russia’s nuclear doctrine
allowed the use of such weapons.
“For
some reason, the West believes that Russia will never use it,” Putin said
when asked by Reuters about the risk of nuclear escalation over Ukraine during
more than three hours of questioning.
“We
have a nuclear doctrine, look what it says. If someone’s actions threaten our
sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible for us to use
all means at our disposal. This should not be taken lightly,
superficially.”
Russia’s
published 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out the conditions under which a Russian
president would consider using a nuclear weapon: broadly as a response to an
attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or to the use of
conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state
is put under threat.”
Nato attack?
Putin
casts the conflict in Ukraine as part of an existential battle with a declining
and decadent West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell
in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence,
including Ukraine.
Putin
said the West refused to speak about the causes of the war – which he said
started in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan
Revolution. Putin cast it as a US-backed coup.
The
West describes the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and has vowed to
help Ukraine defeat Russian forces.
Ukraine
says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from the
areas of Ukraine they control and which Moscow now considers to be parts of
Russia.
Western
leaders and Ukraine have played down Russia’s warnings about the risk of a
broader war involving Russia but have repeatedly warned Putin might attack a
member of NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance.
Both
Putin and Biden have said that a direct conflict between Russia, the world’s
biggest nuclear power, and US-led NATO would be a step towards World War Three.
“You
should not make Russia out to be the enemy. You’re only hurting yourself with
this, you know?” Putin said.
“They
thought that Russia wanted to attack NATO. Have you gone completely crazy? That
is as thick as this table. Who came up with this? It is just complete nonsense,
you know? Total rubbish.”
Additional
reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Lincoln Feast.
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