Putin issues direct threat to 'deal with' UK in chilling warning

During a New Year’s Day visit to injured troops in the capital, Putin said that “Western countries are helping our enemy”.

He said that the West was the antithesis to the “existence of Russia”, branding them the true “enemy”.

The Russian President said: “The point is not that they are helping our enemy.

“They are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with their hands. That is what it is all about.

“This has been the case for centuries, unfortunately, and continues to be the case today.”

"Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” he added, despite the war Russia is waging on Kyiv, which will soon reach its two-year mark.

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“Those who want to destroy Russian statehood and to achieve, as they say, a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, are mainly in the West ... They want to disintegrate [Russia],” he said.

He also blasted the West for “nurturing the Kyiv regime for quite a long time” in order to “create” war.

Putin warned: “Therefore, though it has been their goal to deal with Russia from time immemorial, we will deal with them faster, it seems.

“Those who are trying to destroy Russia using Ukraine ... That is the problem.

“But they will fail: it is simply out of the question, absolutely out of the question.”

Putin has frequently threatened the West with action for aiding Ukraine.

In February 2023, he cautioned that “those who plan to defeat Russia on the battlefield don't understand a modern war with Russia will be very different.”

He also added that Russia has “ways of responding” that “won't just be limited to armoured vehicles.”