KYIV: President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces on alert amid tensions with the West over his invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin asserted on Sunday that leading NATO powers had made “aggressive statements” along with the West imposing hard-hitting financial sanctions against Russia, including the president himself.
Putin ordered the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”