Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has vowed to “finish off” Ukraine.
Putin made this comment while standing aboard a brand-new Russian nuclear submarine during a visit to an Arctic naval base.
Speaking to submariners, he said: “Not long ago, I said we’d grind [Ukraine] down—now it looks like we’ll finish them off.”
Putin also mocked the state of the British economy and armed forces.
He was reacting to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that they would deploy an Anglo-French ‘reassurance force’ to Ukraine following a ceasefire deal.
“[Britain] is jumping on us, behaving aggressively… but their economy is, I think, in the ninth or tenth place in the world,” Putin said.
“And their armed forces—what is it, 170,000 or 180,000? That’s all the armed forces of the UK!”
In terms of gross domestic product (GDP), Britain is ranked as the sixth-largest economy in the world.
Interestingly, Putin’s Russia ranks 11th in GDP.
