Putin puts Russia’s nuclear forces on alert as fighting in Ukraine continues

Kyiv — In a dramatic escalation of East-West tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces put on alert Sunday in response to what he called “aggressive statements” by leading NATO powers.
The move means Putin has ordered Russia’s nuclear weapons prepared for increased readiness to launch, raising the threat that the tensions could boil over into a nuclear war. In giving it, the Russian leader also cited hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including Putin himself.
Amid the worrying development, the office of Ukraine’s president said a delegation would meet with Russian officials as Moscow’s troops drew closer to Kyiv.
Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only the alleged statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin told his defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
Putin threatened in the days before Russia’s invasion to retaliate harshly against any nations that intervened directly in the conflict in Ukraine, and he specifically raised the specter of his country’s status as a nuclear power.
MEANWHILE
The Presidency on Sunday disclosed that 4,000 Nigerians are stranded in Ukraine and unable to cross its borders into neighboring Poland.
In a statement on Sunday night signed by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity), it noted the reports of Ukrainian police and security personnel refusing to allow them to board buses and trains heading towards the Ukraine-Poland border.
The statement stressed the need for everyone to be treated with dignity and without favor.