President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the war in Ukraine was part of Russia’s wider struggle against Western domination, and warned that the world is probably entering the “most dangerous” decade since the end of World War II.
MOSCOW, Russia —
Putin’s comments on the global situation at the annual Valdai Discussion Club meeting were answered indirectly by the US Defense Department’s release of its formal National Defense strategy, in which it painted Moscow as an “acute threat” to Western values. While the West was still “desperately” trying to govern humanity, it was not able to. “Most peoples of the world no longer want to put up with it,” he said.“Russia is not challenging the elites of the West, Russia is just trying to defend its right to exist,” he said.Putin said using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would “make no sense at all to us — either in political or military terms.”
After a closed-door UN Security Council meeting, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said they were serious about the dirty bomb allegation.“These allegations are very serious and may lead to very, very unfortunate consequences,” he said. The agency said it had inspected “one of the two locations a month ago and no undeclared nuclear activities or materials were found there.”Both Ukraine and the United States raised fresh concerns about the pace of grain exports from Ukraine, vital to the world but which Ukraine says are being held up by Russian ship inspections.
In Ottawa on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia would face “great anger” if it backs out of the pact to permit Ukraine grain stocks to be delivered to global markets.