In an alarming escalation of East-West tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces put on high alert Sunday. He claimed it is in response to what he called “aggressive statements” by leading NATO powers.
No one is going to nuke him. He is losing his mind. Maybe he’s trying to get his people worked up against the West? More likely, he is going to become more ferocious against Ukraine.
He’s angry that NATO chief Stoltenberg threatened Article 5.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin directed the Russian defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in televised comments.
“President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “And we have to continue to condemn his actions in the most strong, strongest possible way.”.
In response to the war, Western governments said they would cut off a number of Russian banks from the Swift network. The U.S., the European Union, the U.K. and Canada also said they would take measures to prevent Russia’s central bank from deploying its foreign reserves to support its currency and economy.
Russia signaled its openness to talks with Kyiv, saying that it had sent an aide to Mr. Putin to Belarus for negotiations with Ukraine, according to Russian state media. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded by saying that he was ready for talks in any country other than Belarus.
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