Russian President Vladimir Putin is spreading propaganda and acting "out of a position of weakness" with his nuclear threat this week, according to former Trump administration Ambassador Kurt Volker on Newsmax.
"He's reacting out of a position of weakness here," Volker, the former U.S. envoy to Ukraine under former President Donald Trump, told "Saturday Report." "His forces have attacked Ukraine. They're losing in the battles there. They've been pushed back.
"And so he's grasping for what tools he still has in the toolbox to throw out there."
Putin's threat suggested he would use nuclear weapons if Russia is attacked, but there is no threat to Russia's mainland amid the war in Ukraine that Putin escalated Feb. 24 and has been waging since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Volker told host Rita Cosby.
"Even with that nuclear threat, he was linking it to threats to Russia's territorial integrity, and, of course, nobody is threatening Russia," Volker said. "No one is attacking Russia. No one is killing Russian civilians.
"So he is linking it to something that is not happening."
Putin's latest address to the Russian people is spreading disinformation in an effort to maintain his influence as opposition to his war effort continues to grow among the Russian people.
"The way he was talking about people making threats against Russia or the Russian people, is simply not true, and it's a reflection of the kind of isolation and bubble that he is in — that he is saying these things and trying to convince the Russian people that somehow Russia's under threat, which is not the case," Volker concluded.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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