(Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said failure to help Ukraine secure its own future could lead to a “world of tyranny and turmoil,” in a speech on Saturday that sought to lay out the stakes in the war for the international community.
Austin’s remarks, delivered at a security forum in Canada, were some of his most powerful to date on Russia’s nearly nine-month-old invasion. He warned of the risks of global nuclear proliferation.
“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching. And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” Austin said.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Diane Craft)
