He repeated an assertion that Ukraine may detonate a “soiled bomb” laced with radioactive materials to border Moscow — an allegation dismissed by Kyiv and the West as false and with out proof.
A suggestion by Kyiv that the Russian cost may imply Moscow plans to detonate such a tool itself was false, he mentioned.
“We don’t want to do this. There can be no sense in anyway in doing that,” Putin mentioned, including that the Kremlin had responded to what it felt was nuclear blackmail by the West.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest confrontation with the West because the 1962 Cuban Missile Disaster within the depths of the Chilly Warfare when the Soviet Union and america got here closest to nuclear warfare.
Requested a couple of potential nuclear escalation round Ukraine, Putin mentioned the hazard of nuclear weapons would exist so long as nuclear weapons existed.
However he mentioned Russia’s army doctrine was defensive and, requested in regards to the Cuban Missile disaster, quipped that he had no need to be within the place of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet chief who, together with John F. Kennedy, took the world to the brink of nuclear warfare earlier than defusing the scenario.
“No means. No, I can’t think about myself within the position of Khrushchev,” Putin mentioned.
Putin quoted a 1978 Harvard lecture by Russian dissident and novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who launched a frontal assault on Western civilisation, decrying the hole materialism and “the blindness of superiority” of the West.
“Energy over the world is what the so-called West has placed on the road in its recreation — however the recreation is harmful, bloody and I might say soiled,” mentioned Putin. “The sower of the wind, as they are saying, will reap the storm.”
“I’ve at all times believed and imagine in frequent sense so I’m satisfied that ultimately the brand new centres of the multipolar world order and the West should begin an equal dialog in regards to the future we share — and the sooner the higher,” Putin mentioned.
He forged the battle in Ukraine as a battle between the West and Russia for the destiny of the second largest Japanese Slav nation which he mentioned had led to tragedy for Kyiv.
Putin mentioned he thought consistently of Russian casualties in Ukraine, however prevented entering into element about what the West says are enormous losses. However solely Russia may assure the territorial integrity of Ukraine, he mentioned.
In the end, Putin mentioned, the West must discuss to Russia and different main powers about the way forward for the world.
