Putin not bluffing about nuclear weapons – Serbia’s Vucic
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has warned that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is serious when he speaks about using nuclear weapons if Moscow’s stated red lines continue to be crossed. He added that only “crazy people” or those unfamiliar with Putin would dismiss his warnings.
“If you think you can attack everything on Russian territory with Western logistics and weapons without getting a response, and that Putin won’t use whatever weapons he deems necessary, then you either don’t know him or you’re abnormal,” Vucic told reporters on Monday, according to the Serbian news outlet Novosti.
Vucic cautioned that the planet is on the brink of catastrophe, as no one seems willing to negotiate a truce in the Ukraine conflict. “The world is approaching disaster. No one listens. No one talks about peace,” he said. “Today, it’s an intercontinental missile [sic]; tomorrow, it’s something else.”
The Serbian president, whose country was the subject of an extensive NATO bombing campaign in 1999, referred to Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine, which was approved by Putin on November 19. The document allows Moscow to treat an attack by a non-nuclear state, backed by a nuclear power, as equivalent to direct nuclear aggression.
It also broadens the scope for deploying nuclear weapons to include conventional military threats to Russia or its ally Belarus that could jeopardize their sovereignty or territorial integrity.
Vucic noted that Putin views nuclear weapons as a last resort, but stressed that if Russia’s security is under direct threat, the president will act. “If Moscow’s security or its forces are at risk, and if there’s no other way out, he will use nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that Serbia would avoid entanglement in such a conflict but warned that “the targets will be around us.”
Moscow has consistently accused Western nations of escalating the Ukraine conflict by supplying Kiev with long-range missiles. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently called such actions a “new escalation” aimed at prolonging the war and using Ukraine as a proxy in a broader conflict with Russia.
