ASIATODAY.ID, MOSCOW – Peace talks are based on either victory or defeat, and Russia intends to win, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, when asked about the Ukraine conflict.
Putin’s comments came during a question-and-answer panel at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Stating that the leadership in Kiev is illegitimate and that the West cannot be trusted, the Russian leader said this will not get in Moscow’s way.
“All negotiations are based on either military defeat, or military victory. Of course, we will win,” Putin said.
Moscow is open to negotiations, Putin repeated, but it needs to be able to trust the people on the other side and be offered conditions that are in its interest. Peace talks can’t be based on “fantasies,” he added.
Putin was referring to the admissions by former leaders of Germany and France about the Minsk peace process, which ostensibly sought to resolve the dispute in Donbass which began in 2014. The West was merely stalling for time, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande said in December 2022.
Putin also reminded the SPIEF audience that Vladimir Zelensky can’t be considered the president of Ukraine, as his term legally expired last month. The Ukrainian constitution is clear on extending the parliament’s mandate in case of emergencies, but says nothing about presidential terms. Zelensky’s claim to power is therefore illegitimate, Putin concluded, implying that Russia will have to find someone else to deal with.
Russia ‘not brandishing’ nuclear arms
Moscow has never been the first to resort to aggressive nuclear rhetoric, President Vladimir Putin told a question-and-answer panel at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday. The nation’s nuclear doctrine only allows the use of atomic weapons in “exceptional cases” and the current situation is not one, he added.
When asked whether Russia should “climb the nuclear escalation ladder faster,” Putin replied that Moscow has never initiated such escalation. Russia “has never said” it was “ready to push the red button,” the president stated, adding that Moscow has always called on other nations to treat such issues “seriously” but was instead accused of nuclear saber-rattling.
“We are not brandishing [nuclear weapons],” Putin said.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine clearly states that atomic weapons can only be used in the face of a “threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the country, the president stated. “I do not believe that it is the case now.”
He warned, however, that changes to the doctrine “are not ruled out.”
The president expressed hope that “it will never come” to a nuclear exchange between Moscow and the West. He said Russia possesses an effective early-warning system and a vast nuclear arsenal, including tactical nuclear weapons, which are three or four times more powerful than the bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The EU lacks both and only the US has comparable capacity, he added.
Moscow “has no reasons to even think about” using nuclear weapons, according to Putin. Russia vastly outguns its enemy when it comes to tanks and aviation, the president said. Ammunition production in Russia has also increased by a multiple of 20 amid the ongoing conflict, he added. Putin then called on Russian officials to not even “touch upon” the subject of nuclear weapons unless absolutely necessary. (RT/AT Network)
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