SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 2.29.2024
Vladimir Putin lectured an audience of subservient Russian apparatchiks.
Sitting on their butts for two hours hearing their Fearless Thug Leader threaten that he is not adverse to using nuclear weapons to achieve his war aims in Ukraine.
This is the way this punk terrorist Putin maintains control. Eliminating and imprisoning his domestic adversaries. Imprisoning Americans on Trumped up charges as a terror tool.Waging war against Ukraine. Like a spoiled kid in the playground Vladmir waves his nuclear stick for all the world to see.
All business as usual for this unhinged KGB operative.
Excerpted from The New York Times 2.29.2024
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States.
Mr. Putin has repeatedly made veiled nuclear threats against the West since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, seeking to leverage Russia’s enormous nuclear arsenal to deter Europe and the United States from supporting Ukraine.
“We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory,” Mr. Putin said. “Do they not understand this?”
The Russian leader alluded to comments by President Emmanuel Macron of France this week raising the possibility of sending troops from NATO countries to Ukraine, a scenario the Kremlin said would lead to the “inevitability” of a direct conflict between Russia and the Western alliance.
Mr. Putin is showing no sign of slowing his crackdown on the opposition, which suffered a crushing blow with the death of its imprisoned leader, Aleksei A. Navalny.
Top art: Vladimir lights the match of nuclear war?
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