The telegraph. Podcasts.

I'm Francis Dernley, and this is Ukraine, the latest.

Today, we discuss Vladimir Putin's extraordinary speech this morning, one that saw him order a partial mobilization of 300,000 Russian reservists

and claim that he is not bluffing on the use of nuclear weapons.

What is his strategy and how should the West and the wider world respond?

We are facing a very serious crisis in energy caused by Putin's war in Ukraine.

Nobody is going to break us, we're strong, we're Ukrainians.

Every week, day after noon, we sit down with leading journalists from the telegraphs London Newsroom and our teams reporting on the ground to bring you the latest news and analysis on the war in Ukraine.

It's Wednesday, the 21st of September, day 210.

And today, I'm joined by the telegraphs associate editor Dominic Nichols, our senior reporter, Rowlord Olifant, broadcasting live on the road in Ukraine, and Natalia Vasilyevna, our Russian correspondent.

I started off by asking Natalia for a summary of Putin's speech and its implications.

Yes, we expected Putin's speech yesterday, it was delayed, which was quite extraordinary, because we know that Putin is typically very late, but he always delivers what he promised.

So this morning, he had two bombshells for us, which are an explicit nuclear threat against the West, and an announcement that Russia will go into military mobilization, something that he previously said was not going to happen.

We have heard for four months from Russian pundits, from Russian state TV, about the fact that Russia felt it was under attack, that it was increasingly under attack from the West, rather than from Ukraine.

And this morning Putin was very clear that Russia is now fighting NATO, it's not fighting Ukraine.

He tingled out those politicians, he did name them, who, as he said it, as he put it, was threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, and he said that if there is a threat against Russia's territorial integrity, quote, we will certainly use all our means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.

This is not a bluff. This is probably Putin's biggest statement so far with regards to nuclear weapons.

He, unlike his propagandists, have been very careful not to openly threaten the West with nukes. He also mentioned shelling of Russian occupied Zaporizia power plants as a sign that the West was blackmailing Russia, and he said that Russia's patient in that respect is running out.

I think it's important to say that we have been talking about the prospects of a nuclear war for a very long time. This is obviously a very depressing subject to talk about.

Putin first mentioned Russia's nuclear arsenal earlier on the war when he publicly ordered his defense minister to put it on combat readiness.

So, this moment, this morning, and his announcement probably makes the prospects of a nuclear war as close as we have ever been.

At the same time, we've been hearing statements from program and politicians, from people close to the Kremlin, including Sergei Markov, a former Russian lawmaker, a spin doctor, who often expresses.

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