Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Thursday that he would "respond" to their supply of advanced tanks to Ukraine amid speculations about a new Russian military escalation. During a celebration marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over the German army in Stalingrad, Putin stated that "those who are dragging European countries, including Germany, into a new war against Russia and irresponsibly presenting it as a reality, and those who expect to defeat Russia on the battlefield clearly do not understand that a modern war with Russia will be entirely different."
The Russian president added, "We do not send our tanks to their borders, but we have something to respond with, and this will not be limited to the use of armored vehicles." In Fall 2022, Putin made similar statements interpreted at the time as a threat to use nuclear weapons. In his speech on Thursday in Volgograd, a southwestern city formerly known as Stalingrad, the Russian president considered history is repeating itself, comparing the war his forces are waging in Ukraine to the one fought by Soviet forces against the Nazi army. Since the start of his forces' invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Putin has repeatedly labeled the officials in Kyiv as "neo-Nazis" committing "genocide" against Russian-speaking populations in the eastern part of the country.
After prolonged delays for fear of escalating the conflict, the West finally agreed to send modern tanks to Ukraine, such as the German "Leopard-2," the American "Abrams," and the British "Challenger." However, Kyiv has yet to receive any commitments for high-precision missiles with a range exceeding 100 kilometers, which it claims its forces need to strike Russian rear lines. Many observers believe both Kyiv and Moscow are planning to launch new attacks with the end of winter and the arrival of spring.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed his Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov by stating that Russia is preparing to launch a large-scale new attack on February 24, the anniversary of the beginning of the invasion. Zelensky declared during a joint press conference in Kyiv with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that "Russia is mobilizing its forces; we all know this. It wants revenge not only against Ukraine but also against free Europe." In recent weeks, the Russian army has made some territorial gains around Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine that Moscow has been trying to seize since the summer.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Europeans in a television interview of seeking a "final solution to the Russian question." Lavrov stated that von der Leyen "declared that the outcome of the war should be Russia's defeat (...) so that it does not recover for decades," questioning: "Isn't this racism and Nazism and an attempt to solve the Russian issue?" He likened this to the "final solution to the Jewish question," the Holocaust orchestrated by the Nazis. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace indicated that he does not rule out supplying Ukraine with fighter jets but believed that such equipment is not a "magic wand" capable of quickly changing the course of the war. In Vienna, parliamentarians from twenty countries expressed their desire to prohibit the Russian delegation from participating in the upcoming Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe meeting scheduled to be held at the end of February in the Austrian capital.
