RUSSIA: Ben Wallace, the UK’s defence secretary, asserted on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “extremely unlikely” to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine because it would be unaccepted by Moscow’s allies, India and China.
He did caution that the Russian Federation’s leader has not been operating in a “logical” manner and that there is a good potential that things may get worse.
Putin threatened to use “all the means at our disposal” to defend the Russian Federation during a speech on national television. His remarks were replete with hints that Putin could deploy tactical nuclear weapons in reaction to assaults on the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow just annexed.
Wallace made it clear during an event held at the Tory party conference that he did not think Putin would use nuclear weapons even though the use of nuclear weapons is part of Russian military doctrine because doing so would be unacceptable to Moscow’s allies, India and China.
Wallace said that during Putin’s discussions with the leaders of India and China on the margins of the SCO summit in 2022, he “was given a very clear idea of what is acceptable and unacceptable.”
However, he went on to say that the Russian President’s actions were unreasonable and that he shouldn’t be believed. He gave two specific examples: the current invasion of Ukraine and the Salisbury nerve toxin assault.
Admiral Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff of the UK, stated that Russia could employ space-based advanced weapons to target Western infrastructure in an interview with the British newspaper Telegraph. Radakin also warned that Putin was now a long-term threat to Britain.
“Never say never, but President Putin has set forth an agenda and a route that doesn’t encourage any negotiation,”
The Russian President, he claimed, would have to “end his campaign of assassinations throughout Europe” and acknowledge the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Wallace will attend a crisis conference of northern European countries on Monday to talk about the security of pipelines and underwater cables as a symbol of the most recent worries about Russia’s actions.
Prime Minister Liz Truss said that a series of explosions that severely hurt Russia’s underwater Nord Stream gas pipelines were “clearly an act of sabotage.”
Wallace claimed that the Nordic countries and the UK were “seriously susceptible” to attacks on cables and pipelines.
Russia’s threat to the UK and its allies
Vladimir Putin is a “most clear and urgent threat” to the UK and its allies, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace had earlier said in more overt criticism of the Russian leader.
Wallace added that offensive Russia initiated in Ukraine might very well extend outside of those boundaries. Wallace emphasised that Russia might pose a military threat to other regions of Europe and added that President Putin is a “very genuine danger.”
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