TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment about being “ready” for war if Europe seeks one is a “direct threat”.

Putin made the remark yesterday in the context of the US-brokered peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. 

In response to Kyiv and its European allies amending the proposed peace plan, Putin said Europe has “no peaceful agenda” and is “on the side of war”.

“We are not planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe wants to and starts, we are ready right now,” the Russian president said. 

Asked for his reaction to these remarks today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said:

“It is a direct threat to Europe and President Putin acts or behaves in an intimidatory manner.”

The Taoiseach said he does not believe Putin has any intention of going to war with Europe but “that level of behaviour is really dangerous and damaging”.

He said it was designed to intimidate and particularly intimidate neighbouring countries, “who are very fearful”.

“We often don’t appreciate that here. Many of the countries who were once in the Soviet Union feel the Russian threat as an existential threat, and are very fearful that if Ukraine was to fall, that they would be next in line,” the Taoiseach said.

He added that yesterday’s comment comes in the context of a pattern of “more reckless” activity in recent years from Putin and Russia.

In particular, he pointed to Russia’s military exercises in the Baltic Sea, its use of drones in Polish airspace, and the operations of its shadow fleet. 

“So there’s a lot of trouble, a pattern of behaviour which is designed to intimidate, to test. It’s regrettable,” the Taoiseach said. 

“Europe does not want war. Europe wants peace,” he said, noting that the French President Emmanuel Macron and then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pleaded with President Putin not to go ahead with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but “their pleas fell on deaf ears”.

Yesterday, responding to Putin’s remarks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was “very difficult to comment because Putin really doesn’t want to finish this war because he didn’t get all his goals”.