- Russia's Vladimir Putin menaced the West with the prospect of nuclear war.
- It came after France's president suggested NATO troops could be stationed in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin menaced the West with the prospect of a nuclear attack over its support for Ukraine.
Putin made the remarks Thursday in the opening minutes of his annual state-of-the-nation speech to Russian lawmakers and top officials.
He alluded to a recent suggestion by French President Emmanuel Macron that NATO could send troops to Ukraine to support its fight against the Russian invasion.
Western nations "must realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory," Putin said, according to Reuters, adding: "All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization. Don't they get that?"
The remarks are some of the Russian president's most explicit threats to the West since the start of the Ukraine invasion, in which the US and European countries have provided Ukraine with billions in aid to fight Russia.
But with a new US aid package blocked by Republicans, Russia is making incremental gains against Ukraine, prompting Macron in his remarks last week to call for Europe to intensify its support.
Putin has previously been accused of bluffing in making nuclear threats, suggesting in 2022 that attacks on the occupied Crimean Peninsula would be treated as an attack on Russia and could prompt a nuclear response.
Ukraine has used missiles and other weapons to target the peninsula several times, and Russia has not launched a nuclear attack in response.
However, leaked Russian military files obtained by the Financial Times and published this week, showed the Kremlin had considered a wide variety of scenarios for when the country should go nuclear.
The 29 leaked files pertain to tactical nuclear weapons and are dated from 2008 to 2014, meaning they're at least 10 years old. They outline conditions for how much of Russia's military defense system needs to be destroyed to trigger nuclear warfare, the FT reported.