Vladimir Putin

Putin says Western sanctions are almost a declaration of WAR and anyone imposing no-fly zone on Ukraine would be considered to have entered the conflict 

By Edward Era Barbacena

The Kremlin today threatened Britain with 'tough retaliatory measures' as President Vladimir Putin said devastating Western sanctions against Russia are verging on a declaration of war, and warned that any country imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be considered to have entered the on-going conflict.

The threats came as Moscow's brutal assault on Ukraine saw a mass civilian evacuation from Mariupol derailed when Russian forces ignored a promised ceasefire and continued shelling the southern city.

Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Saturday evening that Russia's proposed ceasefire was likely an attempt to regroup its forces for a new onslaught, while also an attempt to deflect international condemnation.

'By accusing Ukraine of breaking the agreement, Russia is likely seeking to shift responsibility for current and future civilian casualties in the city,' the British defence ministry said in an intelligence update. 

Russia's defence ministry accused Ukrainian 'nationalists' of preventing civilians from leaving, RIA news agency reported. But Mariupol's city council said Russia was not observing the ceasefire.

A defiant Putin today called the West's economic, diplomatic and cultural boycott of the country tantamount to a declaration of war and warned that his regime would consider any third-party declaration of a no-fly zone as 'participation in the armed conflict'.

In an astonishing display of sabre-rattling, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned London: 'Russia will not forget Britain's desire to co-operate with ultra-nationalist forces in Ukraine and the supply of British weapons to the Kiev regime'. 

She added: 'The sanctions hysteria in which London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures. London has made a final choice of open confrontation with Russia. 

'Such a development convinces us once more that Russophobia and the aim to undermine the Russian state are integral elements of Britain's foreign policy.' 

In a dramatic escalation of tensions between Russia and the West last week, Putin announced that Moscow was putting its nuclear deterrence on 'alert'.

Speaking to a group of female pilots at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow, the Russian despot reiterated that his war aims are the 'demilitarisation' and 'de-Nazification' of Ukraine and its neutrality – dismissed as baseless pretexts by Kyiv and her partners including Washington and London.

'These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war, but thank God it has not come to that', Putin jibed.

Talking about the prospect of a NATO state enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, the Russian warmonger continued: 'That very second, we will view them as participants of the military conflict, and it would not matter what members they are.'

Ukraine's president Volodymr Zelensky last night railed against the West over its refusal to impose a no-fly zone over his country – an action which would compel third parties such as Britain and the United States to shoot down Russian aircraft that flew in Ukrainian airspace, and turn the war in Ukraine into a full-scale global war.

But as the United States and other NATO members send weapons for Kyiv and more than 1million refugees spill through the continent, the conflict is already drawing in countries far beyond Ukraine's borders.

In a bitter and emotional speech late on Friday, Zelensky warned that 'all the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you'.

The comic-turned-wartime leader said NATO 'has given the green light to the bombing of Ukrainian cities and villages', adding that 'the history of Europe will remember this forever'. In a separate video message to anti-war protesters in several European cities, he said: 'If we fall, you will fall'.

Ukrainian officials on Saturday blamed Russian shelling for breaching a ceasefire arranged in two cities in the country's south to evacuate more than 200,000 civilians.