Vladimir Putin has sent a stark warning to European nations regarding nuclear war scenarios.
Recently, NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte raised concerns about a potential World War Three, advising member countries to increase their defense budgets. He urged European nations to follow a suggestion inspired by Donald Trump, to spend five percent of their GDP on defense in response to Russia’s ongoing actions in Ukraine. Rutte emphasized that the United States has shouldered a disproportionate share of the defense burden for too long.
“Putin’s war machine is speeding up, not slowing down,” Rutte declared at a London meeting.
“Wishful thinking will not keep us safe,” he further commented. “We cannot dream away the danger. Hope is not a strategy. So NATO has to become a stronger, fairer, and more lethal alliance.”
It is not only Rutte voicing concerns. Putin himself has expressed skepticism about Europe’s capability to defend against a nuclear threat.
At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum last year, the Russian leader issued a chilling message while Sergei Karaganov, a Russian political scientist, advocated for Russia to climb ‘the ladder of nuclear escalation’.
Putin acknowledged the global fear surrounding the threat of nuclear war but noted that certain nations should be more concerned than others.
“If God forbid, it comes to strikes, everyone should realise that Russia has an early warning system for missile attacks. The US has it. Europe does not,” he stated.
“They are more or less defenceless in this sense.”
He went on to say: “If those with whom we exchange such strikes [cease to] exist, whether the Americans will get involved in this exchange at the level of strategic weapons I doubt very much.
“The Europeans should think about it. But I assume that it will never come to that.
“We don’t have that need. Our armed forces so vastly outnumber them in conventional weapons that there is no need. I would ask you not to mention such things in vain.”
These remarks have resurfaced as Colonel Richard Kemp, former head of the British Armed Forces during the Afghanistan war, suggested that Putin might become increasingly agitated if NATO allies intensify their involvement in Ukraine’s defense.
In an interview with LADbible, Colonel Kemp mentioned such NATO actions ‘could prompt Russia to strike back against one or more NATO countries, maybe by missile attacks or something like that’.
“He’s probably not going to be driving tanks into Western Europe, but he has people all around Europe who are ready to carry out sabotage attacks against our countries, and things like cyber attacks, which happen fairly frequently and that could be intensified,” he explained.
A 2022 study indicated that a week-long conflict between the US, its allies, and Russia could result in 360 million casualties, with five out of eight billion people worldwide dying from starvation.
Thus, the hope remains that Putin is not hastily considering drastic actions.