NATO holds nuclear talks amid war tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin threats
The HinduNATO's secretive Nuclear Planning Group met on October 13 as the military alliance presses ahead with plans to hold a nuclear exercise next week despite deep concern over President Vladimir Putin's insistence that he will use any means necessary to defend Russian territory. Earlier this week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that it “would be absolutely the wrong signal to send” if the world's biggest security organisation were to cancel the manoeuvers. “If we now created the grounds for any misunderstandings, miscalculations in Moscow about our willingness to protect and defend all allies, we would increase the risk of escalation.” With the Russian army retreating under the blows of Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons, Mr. Putin raised the stakes by annexing four Ukrainian regions and declaring a partial mobilisation of up to 3,00,000 reservists to buttress the crumbling front line. Mr. Stoltenberg described Mr. Putin's spiralling nuclear rhetoric as “dangerous and reckless,” and underlined that the allies “have also conveyed clearly to Russia that it will have severe consequences if they use nuclear weapons in any way.”