War in Ukraine: How real is the nuclear threat?

Moscow: Moscow today reasserted its claims that Ukraine was preparing to stage a provocation with the use of a “dirty” nuclear bomb “on the territory under its control”. The assertion came hours after President Vladimir Putin who is also the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, watched the nuclear exercises in Russia on October 26. Russia had notified the United States and others and this was acknowledged by the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

Later today, while speaking at a conference of international foreign policy experts, Putin said it was pointless for Russia to strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons. “We see no need for that,” Putin said. “There is no point in that, neither political nor military.”

Russian  Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova today urged the West to tell Kyiv to “turn back from this dangerous and reckless idea and all actions stemming from nuclear blackmail”. She told reporters in Moscow that “For those who doubt this logic of the Kyiv regime, I will recall Vladimir Zelenskyy’s words about the need to deliver a preventive nuclear strike on Russia rather than waiting around”. She claimed Zelenskyy had urged NATO to do this. “When everyone noted this monstrous statement that shocked even the fans of the Kyiv regime that appease and support it in every possible way, attempts were made to justify his words. Zelensky said that he was misunderstood, that he ostensibly was talking about economic strikes. We know what he meant”.

Maria said that Zelenskyy, while speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, demanded the international community provide nuclear weapons. “They are sparing no effort to show their readiness to use nuclear technology as they see fit, which is nothing short of nuclear blackmail but on a different level,” she claimed. She further referred to Zelenskyy’s address to the Lowy Institute in Australia on October 6, 2022, where he “urged the alliance to deliver preemptive strikes at our country before Russia uses nuclear weapons itself”.

Moscow claimed that the Kyiv regime was showing its sponsors (the Washington-London Anglo-Saxon duo, Brussels and everyone else who made a political, militarily or financial investment) that if they do not continue to provide and increase their help, it will move on to Plan B, which she said the Russian Defence Ministry exposed and cited “hard” facts – “This can be backed up by indirect (although, I think, it has already become pretty much direct) evidence: for several months now, the Zelensky-led regime has been firing missiles into the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. They cared little about the fact that it was a civilian facility. All they cared about was the fact that it was a nuclear energy site. The way Kyiv saw it, this shelling attack was supposed to trigger a series of actions and steps on the part of the West that would push the world to the brink of a nuclear disaster. This is exactly what the President of Ukraine was talking about. They need a pretext. This “pretext” didn’t work in the case of the Zaporizhzhia NPP owing to Russia’s efforts.”

According to Maria, that took the Kyiv regime to the next phase of the “terrible, extremist and destructive logic which was the “dirty nuclear bomb.”

“Why does the Kyiv regime want this?” she asked and said “maybe one reason Kyiv uses dirty nuclear blackmail is to extort more Western financial aid (including the large amounts of money that settle in their own bank accounts) and military assistance (to protect themselves rather than the people of Ukraine, and destroying more of Ukraine)”.

Meanwhile on October 25, 2022, in New York, the UN Security Council discussed, at Russia’s request, the Kyiv regime’s preparations to stage a provocation with the use of a “dirty” nuclear bomb on the territory under its control. ” Maria claimed that the Russian representatives cited “convincing arguments” pointing to the “serious nature” of this problem.

– global bihari bureau