Putin Warns West of Risk of Nuclear War

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual address to the Federal Assembly at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in Moscow, Russia, 29 February 2024. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual address to the Federal Assembly at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in Moscow, Russia, 29 February 2024. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY
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Putin Warns West of Risk of Nuclear War

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual address to the Federal Assembly at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in Moscow, Russia, 29 February 2024. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual address to the Federal Assembly at the Gostiny Dvor conference center in Moscow, Russia, 29 February 2024. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY

President Vladimir Putin warned Western countries on Thursday that there was a genuine risk of nuclear war if they sent their own troops to fight in Ukraine, and he said Moscow had the weapons to strike targets in the West.
Addressing parliament and other members of the country's elite, Putin, 71, repeated his accusation that the West is bent on weakening Russia, and he suggested Western leaders did not understand how dangerous their meddling could be in what he cast as Russia's own internal affairs.
He prefaced his warning with a specific reference to an idea, floated by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, of European NATO members sending ground troops to Ukraine - a suggestion that was quickly rejected by the United States, Germany, Britain and others.
"(Western nations) must realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization. Don't they get that?!" said Putin.
Putin, who was speaking ahead of a March 15-17 presidential election when he is certain to be re-elected for another six-year term, lauded what he said was Russia's vastly modernized nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world, Reuters reported.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Putin has previously warned of the dangers of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
Visibly angry, Putin, Russia's paramount leader for more than two decades, suggested Western politicians recall the fate of those, like Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler and France's Napoleon Bonaparte who unsuccessfully invaded his country in the past.
"But now the consequences will be far more tragic," said Putin. "They think it (war) is a cartoon," he said.



Turkish Prosecutors Target 63 Members of the Military over Ties to 2016 Coup Attempt

FILE -Turkish citizens stand on a damaged Turkish military APC that was attacked by protesters in a street near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE -Turkish citizens stand on a damaged Turkish military APC that was attacked by protesters in a street near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
TT

Turkish Prosecutors Target 63 Members of the Military over Ties to 2016 Coup Attempt

FILE -Turkish citizens stand on a damaged Turkish military APC that was attacked by protesters in a street near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE -Turkish citizens stand on a damaged Turkish military APC that was attacked by protesters in a street near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

Prosecutors in Türkiye issued arrest warrants for 63 active-duty military personnel Friday over alleged ties to the late Fethullah Gulen, who was accused of masterminding the failed 2016 coup.

State news agency Anadolu said 56 active-duty soldiers from the Turkish armed forces had been arrested, with another seven still being sought.

Halk TV meanwhile said nine police officers were arrested, "most of them in Istanbul.”

"In an operation against the terrorist organization FETO in 36 provinces centered in Istanbul, 56 of the 63 active-duty soldiers for whom detention orders were issued were captured," Anadolu said.

The FETO -- or the "Fethullah Terror Organization" -- is the name Türkiye gives to Gulen's Hizmet movement.

The prosecutor’s statement said those targeted Friday were identified through telephone communications and said FETO still posed the “greatest threat to the constitutional order and survival of the state.”

Since the failed coup, 25,801 military suspects have been detained, it added.

The statement did not specify the exact charges against the suspects.