'Emotional' Putin Threatens Russians Supporting Ukraine: 'Spit Them Out'

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has sent a warning to Russians who are supporting or sympathizing with Ukraine as the war enters its fourth week.

Speaking in a video teleconference Wednesday, Putin addressed “traitors” who were aligned with Ukraine or the West amid the conflict and said that the West would use them as a weapon to destroy Russia.

"Of course they (the West) will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors - on those who earn their money here, but live over there. Live, not in the geographical sense, but in the sense of their thoughts, their slavish thinking," Putin said.

"Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and just to spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday clarified Putin’s comments and said his words were directed toward Russians who fled the country in this time of need.

"In such difficult times ... many people show their true colors. Very many people are showing themselves, as we say in Russian, to be traitors,” Peskov said in a call, according to NPR.

Putin’s Wednesday speech alarmed many experts and people who studied the Russian president. John Lough, an associate fellow at London’s Chatham House think tank, said he believes Putin is currently “emotional” and the speech was targeting Russia’s elites.

"He's clearly angry, emotional and feels the need to speak in this very aggressive tone," Lough told NBC News.

Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Putin’s speech was similar to Adolf Hitler’s tirade from the fictional film “Downfall” released in 2004.

Approximately 14,861 Russians who protested against the conflict have been arrested since the invasion began on Feb. 24, according to data from OVD-Info, a Moscow-based human rights group that tracks police detentions.

In the four weeks since the invasion, tens of thousands of Russians have fled abroad, heading to Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and other countries, fearing a political crackdown. Konstantin Sonin, a Russian economist, estimates that as many as 200,000 Russians have now left the country amid the war.