I am ready for a nuclear war, Vladimir Putin warns West

President said he would retaliate if there was any attempt to encroach on Russia’s territory.

Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address. Picture: AFP

President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of seeking Russia’s destruction and promised retaliation with weapons of mass destruction if there was any attempt to encroach on Russian territory.

Speaking to MPs and dignitaries in his annual televised address, Putin said the Western powers desired Russia’s “strategic defeat” and the country had to be ready to protect itself, including with nuclear weapons.

He said the West was “choosing targets to strike on our territory” and pulling Ukraine into NATO, requiring a response from Moscow.

Anyone considering an incursion into Russia should consider the failed attempts of past “interventionists”, he said – an apparent reference to the Nazis and the French under Napoleon.

The consequences would now be more “far more tragic” because of Moscow’s modern weapons, he added.

“Everything that the West comes up with creates the real threat of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilisation,” he said.

Putin vowed to resist any foreign “interference” in Russian affairs and said he would act with resolve to defeat the West in Ukraine.

“Instead of Russia they need a dependent, moribund, dying space, where they can do what they want,” he said.

“In essence, they would like to do with Russia what they have done in many regions of the world, including in Ukraine – to bring division to our home and weaken us from inside.”

Putin also spoke of a series of new weapons that would soon be on combat duty, including the Burevestnik nuclear-armed cruise missile, the Poseidon underwater drone and the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.

During the first part of his speech Putin asked for a minute’s silence in memory of Russian soldiers who had died fighting in Ukraine, invaded on his orders in February 2022. He said Russian forces were “advancing surely” in Ukraine and “liberating more and more territories” in the east of the country.

Putin also returned to favourite domestic themes, such as increasing the birth-rate to boost Russia’s population. One measure would be an increased cash payment to parents upon the birth of a child, he said.

Before Putin’s address analysts had predicted he would repeat a familiar diet of themes, from Russia’s “heroic” struggle in Ukraine to the perfidy of the West and the rapid development of Russian weapons. The first hour confirmed these suspicions.

Putin delivered the address amid Russian successes at the front in Ukraine, where Ukrainian government forces are running out of munitions as Republicans in Washington hold up US military aid to Kyiv.

It also comes two weeks before a presidential election that Putin is practically guaranteed to win.

Boris Nadezhdin, a would-be candidate who built a following after opposing the war against Ukraine, was refused permission to run in the March 15-17 election on a technicality.

The success of Nadezhdin, a virtual unknown, surprised officials who usually stage-manage a liberal “opponent” to run against Putin, 71.

Political insiders had told independent Russian media that Putin’s administration initially acquiesced to Nadezhdin, 60, but took fright when he subsequently proved so popular.

According to analysts, the function of the puppet opponent to Putin is to offer an illusion of choice, while in reality being doomed to lose by a large margin.

THE TIMES