In remarks made at the Valdai Club, a pro-Kremlin foreign policy thinktank, Russian president Vladimir Putin said the UK’s former prime minister Liz Truss was a ‘little out of her mind’ referring to her openness to the use of nuclear weapons if needed. ‘How can you say such things in public. They could correct her. Washington could publicly say, “We have nothing to do with this”,’ said Putin during a wide-ranging speech delivered on Thursday in Moscow.
Putin also repeated a prior claim made by the Kremlin about Ukraine allegedly preparing the use of a ‘dirty bomb’, missiles laced with nuclear material. Putin provided no evidence for his claim but said the threat prompted him to tell his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to contact his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Kyiv has strongly denied the accusations, and Biden warned Russia against the use of tactical nuclear weapons in its conflict with Ukraine.
