Russian President reminds West it cannot inflict a \u2018strategic defeat\u2019 on Russia
\nnews agency
\nMoscow
\nPresident Vladimir Putin said on Friday that his deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, something he confirmed for the first time had already happened, was a reminder to the West that it could not inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
\nSpeaking at Russia\u2019s flagship economic forum in St Petersburg, Putin said Russian tactical nuclear warheads had already been delivered to close ally Belarus, but stressed he saw no need for Russia to resort to nuclear weapons for now.
\n\u201cAs you know we were negotiating with our ally, (Belarusian President (Alexander) Lukashenko, that we would move a part of these tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of Belarus – this has happened,\u201d said Putin.
\n\u201cThe first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus. But only the first ones, the first part. But we will do this job completely by the end of the summer or by the end of the year.\u201d
\nThe move, Moscow\u2019s first deployment of such warheads – shorter-range nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union was intended as a warning to the West about arming and supporting Ukraine, the Russian leader said.
\n\u201c…It is precisely as an element of deterrence so that all those who are thinking about inflicting a strategic defeat on us are not oblivious to this circumstance,\u201d said Putin, using a diplomatic term for a defeat so severe that Russian power would be diminished on the world stage for decades.
\nLukashenko, a staunch ally of Putin, said late on Tuesday his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons that included some three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945.
\nThe Russian leader announced in March he had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, pointing to the U.S deployment of such weapons in a host of European countries over many decades.
\nPutin says West wants strategic defeat
\nThe United States has criticised Putin\u2019s decision but has said it has no intention of altering its own stance on strategic nuclear weapons and has not seen any signs that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.
\nThe Russian step is nonetheless being watched closely by Washington and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.
\nPutin said the West was doing everything it could to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine where Moscow is locked in the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two after invading its neighbour last year in what it called \u201ca special military operation.\u201d
\nBut Russia had no need to resort to nuclear weapons for now, said Putin, signalling no change in Moscow\u2019s nuclear posture which only envisages such a move if the existence of the Russian state is threatened.
\n\u201cNuclear weapons have been made to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state, but we…have no such need (to use them),\u201d Putin said.
\nBut he said talks with the West to reduce Russia\u2019s vast nuclear arsenal, the world\u2019s largest, were a non-starter.
\n\u201cJust talking about this (the potential use of nuclear weapons) lowers the nuclear threshold. We have more than NATO countries and they want to reduce our numbers. Screw them,\u201d said Putin.
\nSounding defiant as he addressed his country\u2019s political and business elite, he said a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces in Ukraine had so far not had any meaningful success. Kyiv\u2019s forces were suffering heavy losses and had \u201cno chance\u201d against Russia\u2019s military, he said.
\nUkraine would soon run out of its own military equipment, making it totally reliant on hardware supplied by the West, undermining its ability to fight for long, he suggested.
\nRecalling his stated objectives at the start of the war to \u201cdemilitarise\u201d and \u201cdenazify\u201d Ukraine, Putin said:
\n\u201cAs for demilitarisation, soon Ukraine will stop using its own equipment altogether. There\u2019s nothing left. Everything on which they fight and everything that they use is brought in from the outside. Well, you can\u2019t fight like that for long.\u201d
\nPutting gives warning on F-16s
\nIndependent military analysts say Ukraine has outperformed Russia\u2019s much larger army in nearly 16 months of war, forcing it into major retreats around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.
\nUkraine\u2019s military chiefs said on Friday that advancing Ukrainian troops were facing \u201cdesperate resistance\u201d from Russian forces around the city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured last month after the longest battle of the war.
\nUkraine says it has recaptured seven villages and 100 square km (38 square miles) in the early stages of its counteroffensive.
\nBut Russia\u2019s Defence Ministry said on Friday its forces had repelled numerous attempted counterattacks by the Ukrainian army at different frontline locations in the last 24 hours, inflicting severe losses on Kyiv\u2019s forces.
\nPutin said Western-supplied hardware such as German-made Leopard tanks was regularly destroyed and if Kyiv got US-made F-16 fighter jets from its allies, they would go up in flames too.
\n\u201cF-16s will also be burning, there is no doubt. But if they will be stationed outside Ukraine and used in combat operations we will have to look at how to engage and where to engage those assets being used in combat operations against us.\u201d
\nThat, he said, represented \u201ca serious danger\u201d of dragging NATO further into the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President reminds West it cannot inflict a \u2018strategic defeat\u2019 on Russia news agency Moscow President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that his deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, something he confirmed for the first time had already happened, was a reminder to the West that it could not inflict a strategic defeat on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-338352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n