Putin warns west as Russia-NATO conflict is one step away from World War III

• Putin has never felt the necessity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
• Putin reassures the West that “everything is possible in the modern world.”
• He plans to establish a buffer zone from additional Ukrainian territory if the attacks persist.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned the West that a direct conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would indicate that the planet was one step away from World War Three, but he noted that hardly anyone desired such a scenario.

The Ukraine war has sparked the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has frequently cautioned about the risks of nuclear war but asserts that he has never felt the necessity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that he could not rule out the future deployment of ground troops in Ukraine. While many Western countries distanced themselves from this idea, others, particularly in Eastern Europe, expressed support for it.

A news agency asked about Macron’s remarks and the risks and possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO, Putin quipped: “Everything is possible in the modern world.”

“It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin told reporters after winning the biggest-ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.

Putin added, however, that NATO military personnel were already present in Ukraine, stating that Russia had detected both English and French being spoken on the battlefield.

“There is nothing good in this, first of all for them, because they are dying there and in large numbers,” he said.

Buffer zone:

Ahead of the March 15-17 Russian election, Ukraine escalated attacks against Russia, shelling border regions and even employing proxies to attempt to breach Russia’s borders. When asked if he deemed it necessary to take Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Putin responded that if the attacks persisted, Russia would establish a buffer zone from additional Ukrainian territory to safeguard 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.

He refrained from providing any additional details but indicated that such a zone might need to be large enough to prevent foreign-made armaments from reaching Russian territory. In February 2022, Putin initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sparking a significant European war following eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies on the other.

US democracy:

Putin rejected US and Western criticism of the election, which the White House stated was not free and fair. He remarked that US elections were not democratic and criticized the use of state power against Donald Trump.

“The whole world is laughing at what is happening there,” Putin said of the United States. “It is just a catastrophe — it is not democracy — what on earth is it?“

When questioned about the fate of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in unexplained circumstances at a Russian prison in the Arctic on Feb. 16, Putin stated that Navalny had simply “passed away,” using Navalny’s name for one of the first times in public. Putin mentioned that he had agreed several days before Navalny’s death to swap him. Reuters reported in February that a prisoner exchange deal had been agreed for Navalny shortly before his death.

“I said: ‘I agreed’,” Putin said about his approval of the prisoner swap. “I had one condition — we exchange him but he never returns.”

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