War

What do you make of of Putin’s threat to NATO countries about sending troops I mean it isn’t necessarily on the cards that that one NATO would send troops into Ukraine but this certainly is is a a warning he’s made before it is and there’s a bit of saber rattling going on

Here and there’s always a danger this Cry Wolf isn’t it the more times you do it um but this is the an opportunity for President Putin to address Parliament it’s worth putting that in context in two weeks time obviously presidential elections are due and perhaps inevitably

Um part of what he was talking about today was for a domestic audience but part of it very firmly was for an international audience and as you say it follows president macron of France that had hinted that there might be the opportunity of putting boots on the ground whether NATO or French into

Ukraine and largely because they’re running out of options with weapon support So how do you do something to turn the dawn of course Putin absolutely took this opportunity to say if NATO gets involved there will be an escalation but it’s worth remembering you know that over the last two years um

Russia has consistently tried to deter the west from uh getting in involved it when we provided anti-tank weapons at the start it was an escalation then it was tanks then it was longrange missiles each time it might have delayed the west but it didn’t actually stop them but

It’s also worth pointing he also talked about bolstering um Western um the the defenses on the Western border because as you can see here with Finland and Sweden recently joining it’s massively expanded the border between Russia and NATO and therefore he’s framing that as a heightened threat and he also made the

Point the Russian forces are at Readiness and what he means by that is that don’t mess with me otherwise I’ll press the button so a message to the west but also a message domestically uh you know in terms of what he’s thinking in terms of of the war in Ukraine and

The fact that it is an election year yeah AB increasingly I tend to watch the body language of Putin on some of these things it felt like a more confident President Putin it gave a rare insight into what Russian people the diet they fed because it was the world according

To him he said that the majority of Russians supported the special military operation he said the military have gained the initiative on the battlefields they’ve gained invaluable combat experience but he also took the opportunity to highlight technology that Russia is bringing to bear in other words how powerful that is and he

Highlighted the Zircon uh Hypersonic missile this is it being tested um but it’s actually been used quite effectively very early in its time and development so we got a picture of the missile here and it’s a it’s a pretty 21st century uh missile there’s not many

Of them but he did highlight just how effective this m 8 missile had been it striking targets um now all is part of trying to make Russia Great again I it’s not in battle it’s growing um this economy actually grew last year by 3.6% it actually outgrew America and the EU

Uh and that was despite Western sanctions looking into that there are 16 and a half thousand Western sanctions in place it’s a phenomenal number um and he argued that a strong Russia was necessary for a strong um Global Order he blamed the US for trying to interfere

For trying to inflict a strategic feat but he also said that he Russia was of course ready to talk to the West apparently