BBC News:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Western countries against sending troops to Ukraine.
The consequences of such a decision would be “tragic”, he said.
In his annual state of the nation address, President Putin accused the West of trying to drag Russia into an arms race.
At the same time, he said that Russia needed to strengthen its defences on its western border now that Sweden and Finland were joining Nato.
President Putin said the West “provoked” the conflict in Ukraine and “continues to lie, without any embarrassment, saying that Russia allegedly intends to attack Europe”.
Probably referring to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week that sending Nato ground troops to Ukraine “could not be excluded”, President Putin said: “The consequences for possible interventionists will be… tragic.”
“We also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory,” he added.
“All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?”
Several Nato countries, including the US, Germany and the UK, ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine.
The US has criticised the Russian president’s latest remarks regarding the possibility of nuclear warfare. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said it was “not the first time we have seen irresponsible rhetoric from Vladimir Putin”.
“It is no way for the leader of a nuclear armed state to speak,” he said, adding that the US has seen no evidence that Moscow is planning to launch such weapons.
