Putin gave a speech – mentioned Navalny for the first time | The world

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Putin says NATO troops in Ukraine bring world closer to World War III.

Photo: ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO / AP/ TT

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found dead in a Russian penal colony on February 16.

Photo: BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO/ SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL/IBL

On Sunday, Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of a truce during the Olympics in Paris this summer.

Foto: SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL/IBL

Vladimir Putin won the Russian “election” with – provisionally – unlikely 88 percent of the vote. On Sunday evening he gave his victory speech. In the speech, he thanked the Russian people and especially the Russian soldiers for their support. He also mentioned Alexei Navalny by name for the first time since the opposition leader’s mysterious death in a Siberian prison camp.

– He has passed away. It is always a sad event. There are also other cases, in other countries, where people in prison have died. Didn’t that happen in the United States, for example?, says Putin according to the state-run Ria.

Putin: Closer to World War III

Putin also claimed that, before Navalny’s death, Russia had agreed to a prisoner exchange in which he would be released in exchange for Russian citizens imprisoned in the West.

– I agreed to a prisoner exchange just a couple of days before he died. But only on the condition that he would never come back.

Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron opened up about sending ground troops to Ukraine in the future, as a last resort to stop the Russian advance. At a question and answer session after the speech, Putin was asked about the risk of a conflict between NATO and Russia.

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– Everything is possible in the modern world.

– It is clear to everyone that it would bring the world one step closer to a full-scale third world war. I don’t think anyone is interested in it, he says .

He added that, according to him, NATO already has troops in Ukraine and that they are dying in “large numbers”.

– I think that France can instead have a role in peace negotiations.

In doing so, he also opened for a truce during the Olympics in Paris this summer, something that Macron earlier on Sunday expressed wishes for.

Ahead of the “election”, Ukraine increased its drone attacks inside Russia, while Russian exile militias – with the support of Ukrainian military intelligence – carried out attacks in the border region. Putin says that if these attacks continue, he wants to create a buffer zone by taking more Ukrainian territory.

– I do not rule out that at some point we will be forced to create a ‘sanitary zone’ which is currently under Ukrainian control, he says.