Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned the Western powers that any direct conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO alliance would mean the world will be “one step away” from a full-scale World War III, TASS has reported.
“I think that everything is possible in the modern world. But <…> it will be one step away from a full-scale third world war. I think it’s unlikely Is anyone interested in this?” TASS quoted Putin as saying.
Putin was speaking to reporters after winning the biggest ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.
The Russia-Ukraine war has sparked the most severe strain in Moscow’s relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Putin has frequently highlighted the dangers of nuclear warfare but asserted that he has never deemed it necessary to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to TASS.
Ahead of the March 15-17 Russian presidential election, Ukraine stepped up attacks against Russia, shelling border regions and even using proxies to try to pierce Russia’s borders.
Asked if he considered it necessary to take Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Putin said if the attacks continued, Russia would create a buffer zone out of more Ukrainian territory to defend Russian territory. “I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ in the territories today under the Kyiv regime,” Putin said.
