Ukraine: Potential for nuclear escalation discussed by Brenton
We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info
Vladimir Putin has threatened to escalate the war in Ukraine with the use of nuclear weapons if the West was to intervene directly and confronts Russia head-on. A former British ambassador believes these threats of nuclear warfare should not be dismissed with Putin willing to press the button if “things go really wrong for him.”
British Ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton told Sky News: “[Putin] has been brooding over his isolation during Covid, about Ukraine, which he sees as central to making Russia great again.
“Launched this war, which it looks very unlikely that he could win on the terms that he originally set for himself.
“So he’s disappointed, I suspect he’s angry he’s talked a couple of times about going nuclear, which will be a very big threshold to cross if he went for it.
“But I wouldn’t rule it out entirely if things go very badly wrong for him.”
JUST IN: Putin told losing war to have ‘devastating’ outcome for him
He added: “So I suspect that what we need to be doing is persuading, if not him, personally than the people around him, that there is a respectable way out of this for Russia, and which preserves Ukraine, and we need to be edging our way towards that.”
Sky News host Kay Burley asked: “So does the West have to give him from what you’re saying some sort of get-out clause so that he won’t use potentially nuclear weapons i
Sir Tony replied: “Back in 1962, President John F. Kennedy when dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, said that what the United States absolutely must not do is confront a nuclear-armed adversary by which he meant the Soviet Union at the time with the choice between total humiliation and nuclear escalation.
“That remains as true today as it was when he said it.”
Putin ‘would like to see us all dead’ says Kostiantyn Yelisieiev
He continued: “Yes. The Russians have behaved appallingly. Yes, the political feel of dealing with a country that has committed so many atrocities and so many illegalities is going to be very hard.
“But if the alternative is to move across the nuclear threshold, then we’re going to have to bite our tongues a bit and do it.”
It comes as Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces aimed to establish full control over the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions while intensifying missile strikes in west Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said at least eight people had been killed and 13 wounding in shelling or fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk frontline towns and villages, listing Kremennaya, Popasna, Avdiivka, Maryinka, Toretsk, Vuhledar, and Lymanske.
DON’T MISS
Russia boasts of forces destroying EU and US weapons in Ukraine [NEWS]
Putin told losing war to have ‘devastating’ outcome for him [REVEAL]
China’s arsenal of space weapons could have a ‘devastating impact’ [SPOTLIGHT]
Oleh Sinegubov, governor of Kharkiv province just north of the Donbas, said five people had been killed and 17 wounded in the past 24 hours there, from shelling and grad missiles.
Zelensky adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the new Russian offensive in the east was doomed to fail because Moscow simply did not have enough troops to overrun the defences.
Western countries and Ukraine accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression. The White House said US President Joe Biden, who has called Russia’s actions “genocide”, would hold a call with allies on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, including on how to hold Russia accountable.
French President Emmanuel Macron said his dialogue with Putin had stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine.
Source: Read Full Article
