MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West on Thursday (May 9) of risking a global conflict and said no one would be allowed to threaten the world's biggest nuclear power as Russia marked the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

As Russian troops advance against Ukraine's Western-backed forces, Putin accused "arrogant" Western elites of forgetting the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany, and of stoking conflicts across the world.

"We know what the exorbitance of such ambitions leads to. Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash," Putin said on Red Square after Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu reviewed troops lined up in a rare May blizzard.

"But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness."

Putin, who sent his army into Ukraine in 2022, casts the war as part of a struggle with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence.

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