Vučić Told Sobchak That Putin Isn't Bluffing About Nuclear Weapons, and on a Strike on Europe: "I Think He Will. He Won't Do It"

Aleksandar Vučić, who is now a candidate for prime minister of Serbia, said in an interview with Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak that Vladimir Putin "isn't bluffing at all." If Russia is directly attacked - by the US, by Europe or by Britain - the nuclear response, according to Vučić, will come at the same moment. Western leaders, he says, are making a huge mistake if they think otherwise.

"When they started saying Putin was bluffing about using nuclear weapons, I told everyone in the West: Putin isn't bluffing at all. He certainly doesn't want to use them just like that, without a reason. Nobody is crazy. But if there is a direct attack from outside, from America, Europe or Britain, from whoever you like, he will respond with nuclear weapons at that very moment," Vučić said. According to him, his Western interlocutors repeatedly dismissed his warnings with the reply: "No, no, he's bluffing."

Vučić specified that he was talking about a situation in which Russia is directly attacked and has to defend its territory, not about an arbitrary use of nuclear weapons. He added that he repeats the same warning today, because many in the West believe the Alliance is stronger than Russia and that it will never come to that. "If you really think he won't use it under any circumstances, that's a huge mistake," he said.

An answer that contradicts itself

Then Sobchak opened the most concrete question. She mentioned the thesis of Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov: that Russia should carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike on European factories producing weapons for Ukraine, with no risk of an American nuclear response - and so end the war quickly. Vučić dismissed that possibility like this: "I don't think Putin will do that. Why? I don't know why... I think he will. He won't do it. Because Putin wants to show that he would do it only in an exceptional situation."

The man who claims to understand Putin's intentions better than Western leaders answered the question of a nuclear strike on Europe with "I think he will" and "he won't" in two consecutive sentences. His conclusion, though, is that Putin doesn't see nuclear weapons as a weapon for winning in advance, only as a response in a difficult situation - "a consequence of somebody's actions."

Serbia is a candidate for membership in the European Union, and its most powerful politician, now also a candidate for prime minister, is explaining nuclear doctrine in an interview with a Russian journalist. Is this a message to Brussels, to Moscow or to voters at home? Maybe to all of them at once - a skill we know very well in the Balkans.