We must pray for the protection of Ukraine, America, and the rest of the world as Putin issues more grievous threats.

Analysis. From Daily Mail. Threats of nuclear retaliation against the West have been issued in the past by Soviet and Russian leaders but never — not even at the height of the Cold War — has there been one as explicit as this.

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Putin declared: ‘We will use all available means to protect Russia and our people — this is not a bluff . . . I shall stress — by all means available to us. Those trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the tables can turn on them.’

In case there was any room for doubt, a former close adviser of Putin’s, Sergei Markov, filled in some details on yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme when he warned that ‘your cities will be targeted’.

This is what Markov said in his spine-chilling rant: ‘If Great Britain will continue to be [the] aggressor against Russia . . . if Prime Minister Liz Truss still has a plan to destroy Russia, people in London should understand the threat [of nuclear weapons].’

Unhinged? Without any doubt. But it would be rash of our political leaders and of the general public to dismiss these outpourings as empty threats. I only wish that they were.

It’s not the first time the Putin regime has spoken in such terms. Back in April, Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s puppet foreign minister, warned that if Nato continued to provide military aid to Ukraine, there would be a ‘considerable threat’ of a nuclear conflict. …

Before the war began, I argued in these pages that Russia had something of a case inasmuch as there were undoubtedly ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who preferred to be ruled by Moscow than Kyiv. That argument, though correct at the time, is now ancient history.

[By] invading Ukraine, and prosecuting the war in such a brutal way, Putin has established that he is both unbalanced and inhumane. …

Putin has deliberately killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians, and forcibly deported thousands more to Russia. There is ample evidence of widespread torture and murder. …

The truth is that we can’t abandon Ukraine. . . .

But there is more to it than that. If we had not supported Ukraine, Putin’s forces would have also menaced the Baltic states and Poland, and potentially the rest of Eastern Europe. In helping Ukraine to defend itself we are defending ourselves.

So there is no easy answer to my question as to whether anything can be done to decrease the danger of a Russian nuclear attack. . . .

We can also place some faith in the traditional doctrine of nuclear deterrence, which holds water if a potential adversary is essentially rational. I ardently hope, despite evidence to the contrary, that Vladimir Putin still is. . . .

How are you praying for Ukraine and Russia? Share your thoughts and prayers below.

(Excerpt from Daily Mail. Photo Credit: Getty Images)