Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that if the West allows Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles supplied to Kiev by Western countries, it would mean that “NATO countries are at war with Russia».

“If this decision is made, it would mean nothing less than the direct involvement of NATO countries in the war in Ukraine. This would change the very nature of war. It would mean that the NATO countries, the USA, the European countries, are at war with RussiaPutin said in a video posted on Telegram by a reporter covering the Russian presidency.

Pressure on Putin to use nukes in NATO countries

According to a telegram from the Reuters agency, the Russian president is accepting suggestions to adopt a tougher stance with regard to NATO countries as there are voices that argue that Moscow’s existing policy is not working.

Specifically, the head of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP), Sergei Karaganov, said the Kremlin should clearly state that is willing to use nuclear weapons against countries that “support NATO’s aggression in Ukraine.”

Sergei Karaganov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper that Moscow could have unleashedi a limited nuclear strike in a NATO country without causing an all-out nuclear war. The United States, he added, is lying when it claims to guarantee nuclear protection to its allies.

A main goal of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, Karaganov said, “it should be to ensure that all its enemies, present and future, know for sure that Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons.”

“It is time to declare that we have the right to respond to any significant strike on our soil with nuclear weapons.”

Karaganov’s views, which do not represent official Russian policy (although the Kremlin has given him repeated opportunities to express them in various forums), have come under the microscope of Western security experts.

Russian counterattack in Kursk

As for the invasion of Ukraine, earlier the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had recaptured ten villages from Ukrainians in two days in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces claim to control about a hundred residential areas after the attack that launched the August in this border area.

“During the offensive operations, units of the “North” troop group liberated 10 locations in two days”the Russian ministry said in a statement

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian army had begun a counteroffensive in Russia’s western Kursk region, where Kiev had launched a major invasion last month.