NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using “dangerous nuclear rhetoric” when he said he was ready to use “all means” in his arsenal against the West.
“This is dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” he said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, but urged calm because “this is not new, he has done it many times.”
“We will remain calm and continue to support Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told a conference organized by the Reuters news agency, stressing that the Alliance had not detected any change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
“But we are closely monitoring and remain vigilant,” he said. “The most important thing is to prevent this from happening,” he defended, also mentioning that NATO’s reaction “would naturally depend on the situation and the type of weapons they might use.”
“President Putin’s speech shows that the war is not going as he had planned, he made a big miscalculation,” said the NATO secretary general.
Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed on Wednesday the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists for the war in Ukraine, a measure that seeks to counteract what he described as “nuclear blackmail” by NATO, which aims to “destroy” Russia.
In a televised speech, Putin warned that those seeking to “blackmail” Russia with nuclear weapons should know that “the compass rose could turn against them.”
The mobilization follows the programming of integration referendums in Russia, from September 23 to 27, in the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, consultations already condemned by the international community
Russia launched a military occupation of Ukraine on February 24 that has dragged on for nearly seven months.
Source: TSF
