President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman admitted that Russia has yet to achieve any of its military objectives in Ukraine and refused to deny that Moscow could resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour, from CNNon Tuesday (22), Dmitry Peskov repeatedly refused to rule out that Russia would consider the use of nuclear weapons, against what Moscow saw as an “existential threat”.
When asked under what conditions Putin would use Russia’s nuclear capability, Peskov replied: “If it’s an existential threat to our country, then it could be.”
Putin had previously suggested using nuclear weapons against nations he saw as a threat to Russia. In February, the Russian president said in a televised statement: “No matter who tries to stand in our way or even further create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be like you have never seen. throughout its history.”
He also stated that “officials from the main NATO countries have allowed themselves to make aggressive comments about our country, therefore I order the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff to place the Russian Army Deterrent Force on combat alert.”
Asked what Putin thought he had achieved in Ukraine so far, Peskov claimed: “Well, first of all, not yet. He hasn’t reached it yet.”
The spokesman also proclaimed that the “special military operation” — the Kremlin’s official euphemism for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — was “following strictly in accordance with the plans and purposes that were established in advance.”
Peskov also repeated Putin’s demands, saying the “main objectives of the operation” are “to get rid of Ukraine’s military potential”, to ensure that Ukraine is a “neutral country”, to get rid of “nationalist battalions”, for Ukraine. accepting that Crimea – annexed by Russia in 2014 – is part of Russia and accepting that the breakaway states of Luhansk and Donetsk “are already independent states”.
He also maintained that Russia only attacked military targets, despite numerous reports of air strikes against civilian targets harboring ordinary Ukrainians.
The interview comes as Western intelligence reported that Russian operations have stalled in parts of Ukraine.
Source: CNN Brasil
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