NATO is also a “
nuclear alliance
”, warned Thursday the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, while Russia agitates the nuclear threat in the event of an obstacle to its offensive in Ukraine.
Read alsoHubert Védrine: “
Putin is making a historic mistake
”
Russian President "
Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear alliance ", declared Jean-Yves Le Drian on the TF1 channel, also promising "
spectacular
" European sanctions
which will "
strike to the heart
" Russia .
In his speech announcing the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the master of the Kremlin underlined that his country remained one of the “
greatest nuclear powers in the world
”.
“
No one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to destruction and terrible consequences for any potential aggressor
,” he said.
Jean-Yves Le Drian accused the Russian president of having reneged on his word by launching a military offensive.
"
He's a cynic and he's a dictator
," he said.
The 27 Member States of the European Union (EU), meeting Thursday evening in Brussels for an extraordinary European summit, will take “
very massive, very spectacular, very heavy
” sanctions, he also outlined.
"
They aim to asphyxiate the economic functioning of Russia through banking, financial, technological, industrial and export transfer measures (...) and at the same time to act with the oligarchs to punish them with a certain manner, blocking their route assets and capabilities,
” “he detailed.
France is also studying a series of requests for assistance from Ukraine, including military.
"They made us a list (of military equipment), we are studying it to try to respond as best as possible to their request as quickly as possible," he said.
