Israel condemns Putin’s nuclear threats and mobilization of reservists
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Yair Lapid condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision announced Wednesday to mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists to fight in Ukraine and his veiled threat of nuclear war, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.
This would be the first call-up of reservists in Russia since World War Two.
Israel historically has managed to maintain good relations with both Ukraine as a Western democracy and with Russia, which controls the airspace over Syria (an enemy of Israel) but allows Israel to hit Iranian-backed terrorist targets in the country.
The outright and immediate condemnation of Russia’s action in mobilizing reservists contrasted with Israel avoiding an immediate condemnation of the Russian invasion when it began on February 24. Lapid, who was still Foreign Minister in February, adopted a harsher tone with Russia immediately after the invasion than Naftali Bennett, Israel’s prime minister at the time, did, TOI noted.
In his televised announcement about the reservists, Putin also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing when he says he will use any means to defend Russian land. His comments were taken as meaning he might resort to nuclear war. “This sounds like another round of chest-thumping, but it is clearly the most explicit nuclear threat Putin has made so far,” analyst Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, said in a statement.
Condemning Putin’s mobilization plan on Wednesday, the senior Israeli official told TOI: “We have condemned in very clear language incidents like Bucha. This falls under that. This call-up of 300,000 additional soldiers to further deepen a war that didn’t need to happen in the first place. The same, of course, goes for the threats to use nuclear weapons.”
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