Putin mobilises 300,000 troops in a first since WWII, warns 'will use nuclear weapons'

In an angst-laden, rare televised speech to the nation on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons categorically emphasizing that he "is not bluffing" whilst he ordered Moscow's first ever troop mobilisation since World War II.

As he backed the plan to annex swathes of occupied Ukraine and send 300,000 army reserve troops for the combat operation on the battlefield in Kyiv, Putin warned the West to stay out of Moscow's business. He asserted that he will use "all the means" at his disposal to protect what Russia considers its own territory. Putin prepared to pass the referendum to annex part of Ukraine deemed the size of Hungary, and other occupied regions, prompting Western condemnation including from the Biden administration that labelled it as a "sham."

"The goal of the West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country," maintained Russia's authoritarian leader, adding that he is ready to use nuclear weapons [weapons of mass destruction] to defend Russia's territorial integrity. 

Putin iterated that the US and its Western allies have started to claim, publicly, that in 1991 they managed to split up the then Soviet Union. And now, they intend to use force and military coercion to destroy Russia, said Moscow's head of the state. West intends to divide Russia into numerous regions that would be in a deadly feud with each other, claimed Putin. "They devised these plans long ago," he ascertained. Further, he accused the West of encouraging the groups of international terrorists in the Caucasus adding that NATO has boldly moved its offensive [military] infrastructure "close to our borders."

'West has crossed every line': Putin 

Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in turn, confirmed at a presser that an initial 300,000 reservists would be called up soon from amongst 25 million soldiers demonstrating war readinesss. "In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line," Putin asserted, escalating fears of a nuclear war. "Those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them," he went on to add. 

Credit: Russian MFA

"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people - this is not a bluff," Putin said in a televised address to the Russians. 

Putin accused NATO and its allied countries of engaging in "nuclear blackmail" as they discussed the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow. He lambasted the United States, the European Union and Britain for using indiscriminate "Russophobia" as a weapon, including by nurturing the hatred of Russia for decades, mainly in Ukraine. Kyiv was designed by NATO and the West as an anti-Russia bridgehead, said Putin. "They turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder and pushed them into a war with Russia, which they unleashed back in 2014," he added. 

Russia's president reminded that the West meddled with Ukraine's politics, referring to the Maidan Revolution and the Ukrainian Revolution, which led to the 2014 far-right coup in Kyiv. "They used the army against civilians and organised a genocide, blockade and terror against those who refused to recognise the government that was created in Ukraine as the result of a state coup," said Putin. Moscow accuses the US and European imperialism of the Ukrainian coup which it says was enacted primarily by far-right shock troops like Right Sector and the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party. Since then, Putin has accused pro-US and EU Ukrainian governments of Zelesnkyy of systematically building up a launching pad for a NATO war against Russia.