Related videos:
President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday that Moscow will respond immediately if provoked by the West, in a new exchange of statements with U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently labeled Russia as a “paper tiger.”
During his speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Putin made a sarcastic remark about Trump's words and stated that if Russia is a "paper tiger" yet still makes progress on the front in Ukraine against the entire NATO, then “what is the alliance itself?”, reported the Reuters agency.
The Russian leader insisted that the war in Ukraine is now directly pitting Moscow against NATO and accused Western countries of providing weapons, intelligence, and training to Ukrainian forces.
“If anyone still wants to compete with us in the military field, let them try. The Russian countermeasures will not be long in coming,” he warned.
Putin took a more serious tone when referring to the possibility of the United States providing Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv, stating that it would be a dangerous escalation.
"It is impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct involvement of U.S. military personnel. This would represent a completely new stage, qualitatively different, in the confrontation with Washington," he declared.
So far, the administration Trump has not officially announced whether it will send cruise missiles to Ukraine.
The Russian president also dismissed European accusations regarding violations of NATO airspace by drones and combat aircraft, which he described as "hysteria."
"I promise not to do it again in Denmark and, by the way, we don't have drones that reach Lisbon," he quipped.
Putin presented the conflict as a turning point in relations with the West, which he accuses of having humiliated Russia after the fall of the USSR in 1991 through the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.
"Calm down, sleep peacefully, and take care of your own problems. Just look at what is happening in the streets of European cities," he added.
According to data provided by the Kremlin, Russia currently controls nearly the entire Luhansk province, 81% of Donetsk, and about 75% of the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The leader again suggested that Ukraine should negotiate a peace agreement, asserting that Kyiv's forces are experiencing a shortage of personnel and desertions.
The war in Ukraine, regarded as the deadliest in Europe since World War II, has resulted in thousands of fatalities and has turned into the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Filed under: