Putin in his conversation with Macron said that "you don't have to launch a nuclear strike on a major city to win a war

Russian President Vladimir Putin has alarmed Western leaders by mentioning the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Daily Mail reported, citing diplomatic sources.

The publication reports that Putin, in a telephone conversation with Macron, expressed the view that the bombings that triggered Japan's surrender and the end of World War II demonstrated that it was not necessary to attack major cities in order to win.

A Daily Mail source said:

It sounded like a very heavy hint that Putin could detonate tactical nuclear weapons in eastern Ukraine while leaving Kiev untouched

This newspaper previously wrote that in her final days as prime minister, Liz Truss was visibly worried that Putin might use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Allegedly she was concerned about the issue to such an extent that she paid close attention to weather forecasts that would affect the spread of a radioactive cloud in the event of a nuclear weapon being used.