FT reveals how West responded to Russia's nuclear blackmail

Last autumn, the US, the UK and France warned Russia about the consequences of using nuclear weapons in its full-scale war against Ukraine which removed the nuclear threat from the Russian rhetoric for a long time.

Source: article by Max Seddon, the head of the Russian bureau of Financial Times, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Russian President Vladimir Putin first hinted at the possibility of a limited nuclear strike on Ukraine in his speech on the eve of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. After the annexation of the four Ukrainian oblasts, he promised to "use all the means at our disposal" to defend these conquests.

"Those threats prompted the US, UK and France to vow retaliation with conventional weapons," Seddon writes with reference to unnamed acting and former officials.  

According to the sources of FT, Chinese leader Xi Jingping, who personally warned Putin against using nuclear weapons, specifically during his visit to Moscow in March 2023, also played his role.

Earlier, experts assumed the possibility of a conventional response by the West to Russia’s nuclear strike on Ukraine. NATO officials told reporters about a "physical response", but without details.

Finally, last autumn, Putin admitted that using nuclear weapons would make no "political or military sense" to use tactical nuclear weapons and largely stopped talking about his atomic arsenal.

Currently, Russia resorts to the topic of nuclear weapons, trying to deter further military support of Ukraine by the West, Seddon states with reference to Western experts.

Among other things, he ordered the deployment of nuclear charges in neighbouring Belarus and initiated the de-ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which may pave the way to resuming nuclear tests for the first time since the collapse of the USSR.

Background: Last week, the Russian military leadership reported to Vladimir Putin about the training of the Strategic Nuclear Forces of Russia, during which they exercised the "launch of a massive nuclear strike" in response to the enemy’s attack.

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