Putin Issues New Ominous Threat to US
Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening to “deal with” the U.S. and its Western allies for aiding Ukraine while it remains at war with Russia.
Ukraine claims that Russia has lost more than 360,000 soldiers since Putin ordered his full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, including over 253,000 during 2023 alone. Newsweek has not independently verified the figures.
Putin suggested during a New Year’s Day visit with injured Russian troops in Moscow that the U.S. and its allies have blood on their hands for whatever Russian casualties have occurred during the so-called “special military operation.”
In response to a question about “Western countries helping our enemy,” Putin argued that the West was working in opposition to “the existence of Russia” and should be viewed as Moscow’s true “enemy.”
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy,” said Putin. “They are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about. This has been the case for centuries, unfortunately, and continues to be the case today.”
“Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” he added. “Those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve, as they say, a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, are mainly in the West … They want to disintegrate [Russia].”
The Russian president went on to say that the West had been “nurturing the Kyiv regime for quite a long time” in order to “create” the war.
Putin argued that the U.S. was working to “exponentially” increase the flow of artillery shells to Ukraine, while Russia was still outpacing the West in “building up” military equipment.
“Therefore, though it has been their goal to deal with Russia from time immemorial, we will deal with them faster, it seems,” Putin said. “Those who are trying to destroy Russia using Ukraine … That is the problem.”
“But they will fail: it is simply out of the question, absolutely out of the question,” he added.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the U.S. State Department and the White House via email on Tuesday.
Putin and his allies have repeatedly threatened the West with retaliatory action for aiding Ukraine, including potential nuclear strikes, during the course of the 22-month war.
In February 2023, Putin warned that “those who plan to defeat Russia on the battlefield don’t understand a modern war with Russia will be very different,” while adding that Russia has “ways of responding” that “won’t just be limited to armored vehicles.”
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister who now serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, last month accused President Joe Biden of attempting “primitive blackmailing” to secure more aid for Ukraine, warning that the Russia-Ukraine war could turn “into WWIII” as a result.
“[The Biden administration] and their scared fosterling are sure to get the money,” said Medvedev. “If not now, then in the coming year, to go on with their war business at all costs. And for this dough, new rivers of blood will flow, for which Biden family and their [Banderite] scum are responsible.”