Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday leveled another veiled nuclear threat in relation to the war in Ukraine as he ripped into Germany for providing battle tanks to Kyiv, while comparing Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its next-door neighbor to the Soviet Union’s fight against the Nazis during World War II.
“Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country,” Putin said during a speech in Volgograd. Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad after the Soviet dictator, was the site of the World War II battle that put Nazi Germany on the path to defeat at an estimated cost of 750,000 Soviet lives.
“Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It’s incredible but it’s a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them,” Putin added.
