President Vladimir Putin has appeared on state television to warn that Russia had no choice but to take into account the nuclear capabilities of NATO, because the US-led military alliance was seeking the defeat of Russia.

“In today’s conditions, when all the leading NATO countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us, so that our people suffer as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these conditions?” Mr Putin told Rossiya 1 state television, according to TASS.

The West, he said, wanted to liquidate Russia.

“They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part — the Russian Federation,” Mr Putin said, according to TASS.

The West, he said, was an indirect accomplice to the “crimes” committed by Ukraine.

More to come.