Free World V Putin

PM Praises fearless Ukrainians in brave fight to save their country | as rattled russian leader issues chilling nuclear threat, it’s... PM: Nuclear threat is a distraction from reality

- Giles Sheldrick

THE free world stood united against an increasingly isolated Vladimir Putin last night after he put Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal on high alert.

The provocative move – described by Boris Johnson as a “distraction from reality” – prompted widespread outrage, with nations ramping up sanctions against the desperate president.

As Putin’s forces continued to face extraordinarily brave resistance in Ukraine, hundreds of thousands around the world took to the streets to protest.

Last night Boris Johnson said Putin putting 6,000 warheads on standby was “a distraction from the reality of what’s going on in Ukraine”. And he praised Ukrainians for “fighting back perhaps with more effect, with more resistance, than the Kremlin had bargained for”.

Just one nuclear warhead has the capability of obliterating an entire city and hundreds of thousands of people.

And as a barrage of Western reprisals for Putin’s war on Ukraine was announced, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko – an ally of Putin – last night warned: “It’s worse than war. This is pushing Russia into a Third World War. We need to be restrained here so as not to get into trouble. Because nuclear war is the end of everything.”

Among new sanctions, the UK, US, European Union and Canada announced that the assets of Russia’s central bank would be frozen. The West also moved to cut pariah Putin’s nation out of international payments system Swift, effectively blocking its exports and imports.