Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered what appeared to be a veiled threat against allies of Ukraine on Wednesday, suggesting Russia could supply long-range weapons to its own allies in order to strike Western targets.
Giving a rare interview with international journalists at a press conference in St Petersburg, Putin said that if NATO allies could supply weapons to Ukraine for war, he could do the same with his arsenal and hand them out to other countries keen to attack to the West.
“We are thinking that, if they consider it possible to deliver such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?” he said.