Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied having any intentions of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine but described the conflict there as part of alleged efforts by the West to secure its global domination, which he insisted are doomed to fail.
Speaking at a conference of international foreign policy experts, Putin said it’s 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.”
In a long speech full of diatribes against the U.S. and its allies, Putin accused the U.S. and its allies of trying to dictate their terms to other nations in a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” domination game.
Putin, who sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, has cast Western support for Ukraine as part of broad efforts by Washington and its allies to enforce its will upon others through what they call a rules-based world order. He argued that the world has reached a turning point, when “the West is no longer able to dictate its will to the 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 working and could make the world more stable and secure.”
The Russian leader said Russia isn’t the enemy of the West but will continue to oppose the purported diktat of Western neo-liberal elites, accusing them of trying to subdue Russia.
“Their goal is to make Russia more vulnerable and turn it into an instrument for fulfilling their geopolitical tasks, they have failed to achieve it and they will never succeed,” Putin said.
Putin reaffirmed his long-held claim that Russians and Ukrainians are part of a single people and again denigrated Ukraine as an “artificial state,” which received historic Russian lands from Communist rulers during the Soviet times.
The Russian leader repeated Moscow’s unfounded claim that Ukraine was plotting to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb to blame Russia in a false flag attack, the allegations rejected by Ukraine and dismissed by its Western allies as “transparently false.”
Putin said he thinks “all the time” about the casualties Russia has suffered in the Ukraine conflict, but insisted that NATO’s refusal to rule out prospective Ukraine’s membership and Kyiv’s refusal to adhere to a peace deal for its separatist conflict in the country’s east has left Moscow no other choice.
He denied underestimating Ukraine’s ability to fight back and insisted that his “special military operation” has proceeded as planned.
Putin also acknowleged the challenges posed by Western sanctions, but argued that Russia has proven resilient to foreign pressure and has become more united.
(AP)
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Who writes these winner headlines for YWN? “TRUST BUT VERIFY”
Who are we supposed to trust? Putin is “Becheskas Shakran” he has lied so many times, before the war he assured the world there would not be a war, his troops were just gathered at the border for a military exercise and maneuvers, then without blinking he invaded Ukraine. He then claimed he had to invade Ukraine to defend the Russian speakers from genocide because Ukraine was killing them, (without ever providing any evidence) and also because the Ukranian government are Nazis and he wants to denazify Ukraine, when his initial plan conquer Kyev to oust Zelesky failed he switched his story and claimed everything is going according to plan his goal was just to get control of the Donbass, when he realized how his lumbering incompetent army was beginning to lose the war he started his nuclear saber rattling. This is a ruthless man who kills his political opponents, who has never kept an agreement or treaty. His army has targeted civillians killing innocent people for nothing all over Ukraine. He is a war criminal and his word means absolutely nothing. So when he says there is no need for a nuclear weapon being used in Ukraine it means nothing. If there was any chance he might use a nuclear bomb in Ukraine that same chance still exists today and his speech did not make anyone less worried the chances did not go down at all and it would be extremely naive to put any trust at all in Putins words. If you look at his speech its just so full of lies and nonsense that its hard to believe a man with such a twisted mind got to the top position in Russia.