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The Kremlin has made a sinister nuclear threat to the West as Europe looks to reconsider allowing Ukraine to use weapons to strike Russian territory.
Putin previously warned Nato members that they were ‘playing with fire’ by considering relaxing weapons rules to allow Ukraine to use western weapons to strike within Russia.
Now Dmitry Suslov, member of the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, said a ‘test detonation’ would ‘cow the West’.
The think tank’s ideas have previously become the Kremlin’s governmental policy – ringing alarm bells for many.
Today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: ‘Nato member states … are entering a new round of escalations in tensions and they are doing it deliberately.
‘They are provoking Ukraine in every possible way into continuing this senseless war.’
Nato has long refrained from allowing Ukraine to use western weapons to fire into Russia for fear of sparking a larger conflict.
But attitudes are shifting, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky has said.
He said: ‘Russia has decided to escalate. It is Putin after the inauguration, he feels strongly. He started an offensive in Kharkiv. We saw the provocations at the Narva River, the attempts of sabotage, some of them successful, on the territories of Poland and the UK.
‘I’m sure that we will see more of this escalation, so we need to repeat properly and definitely shouldn’t be afraid, but show strong resolve to defend ourselves.’
He added: ‘We have to make use of logic and, also, international law, and the charter of the UN clearly says that you can protect yourself from aggression.
‘I understand those concerns, I understand there are weapon systems that can be used quite far away. We have the discussions, but I feel that we are even moving on that in the international sphere.’
Earlier this week, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said if foreign weapons are used against Russia, her government will target the UK ‘on Ukraine’s territory and beyond its borders’.
Amid the ongoing Russian offensive unfolding in the region of Kharkiv where a number of towns and villages have been half-destroyed, Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging his Western allies to supply more weapons.
Putin has been taking advantage of the shortage of defence missiles in Ukraine in the last month.
In response, the US is expected to announce an additional £216 million in military aid for Ukraine, two US officials have said.
This will be the fourth instalment of military aid for Ukraine since Congress passed a long-delayed foreign aid bill late last month and comes as the Biden administration has pledged to keep weapons flowing regularly.
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