Russia’s Putin denies he intends to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine
LA Times“We see no need” for using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech Thursday. “There is no point in that, neither political nor military.” Putin said an earlier warning of his readiness to use “all means available to protect Russia” didn’t amount to nuclear saber-rattling but was merely a response to Western statements about their possible use of nuclear weapons. He argued that the world has reached a turning point, when “the West is no longer able to dictate its will to humankind but still tries to do it, and the majority of nations no longer want to tolerate it.” The Russian leader claimed that the Western policies will foment more chaos, adding that “he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.” Putin claimed that “humankind now faces a choice: accumulate a load of problems that will inevitably crush us all or try to find solutions that may not be ideal but could work and could make the world more stable and secure.” Without offering evidence, the Russian leader repeated Moscow’s unproven allegation that Ukraine was plotting a “false flag” attack involving a radioactive “dirty bomb” it would try to pin on Russia. In that context, he acknowledged that the fighting in Ukraine effectively amounts to a civil war, although the Kremlin calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation.” Putin said he thinks “all the time” about the casualties Russia has suffered in Ukraine, but said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s refusal to rule out Ukraine’s prospective membership and Kyiv’s refusal to adhere to a peace deal for its separatist conflict in the country’s east had left Moscow no other choice.