Putin Dials Up Nuclear Threat, Orders Draft of Reservists to Ukraine

MOSCOW—In an escalation of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the threat of a nuclear response in the conflict and ordered reservists to mobilize, as Moscow seeks to buttress its army’s flagging manpower and regain the offensive following stinging losses on the battlefield.

“Russia will use all the instruments at its disposal to counter a threat against its territorial integrity—this is not a bluff,” Mr. Putin said in a national address that blamed the West for the conflict in Ukraine, where he said his troops were facing the best of Western troops and weapons.

The speech is the clearest sign yet that seven months into the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia is unable to counter Ukraine and the West, which has largely united in the face of the Russian invasion.





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