Putin has threatened attacks against foreign nations.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Russian President Vladimir Putin has put up a warning against other nations that may consider taking up arms against Russia. On Sunday, during a televised address, Putin officially ordered his Minister of Defense to place the Russian Army Deterrence Force on its highest state of alert, which includes the potential priming of nuclear weaponry.

President Putin puts Russia's nuclear and other deterrent forces on high alert https://t.co/cHeQT8kvbQ

— CNN (@CNN) February 27, 2022

Despite the threat of nuclear attack, most major world powers, including the United States, have dismissed this action as an empty threat. “This is really a pattern that we’ve seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression – and the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC.

In a separate interview, a senior White House official told CNN that Putin’s actions were “yet another escalatory and totally unnecessary step.”

Putin ordered Russia's nuclear-deterrence forces to be put on alert Sunday in a sign of growing tensions with the West over Ukraine. Here's what to know: https://t.co/40pCTGFVDv

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 28, 2022

“At every step of this conflict Putin has manufactured threats to justify more aggressive actions – he was never under threat from Ukraine or from NATO, which is a defensive alliance that will not fight in Ukraine,” the official said.

“The only reason his forces face a threat today is because they invaded a sovereign country, and one without nuclear weapons. This is yet another escalatory and totally unnecessary step,” they added.