Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has accused Volodymyr Zelensky of appealing “to start yet another world war with unpredictable, monstrous consequences”, after Ukraine’s president called for Nato to use preventive strikes to preclude Russia’s use of a nuclear weapon.
Kyiv later clarified that Mr Zelensky had been referring to pre-emptive sanctions, adding that Ukraine will “never” call for a nuclear attack. But the Kremlin’s Dmitry Peskov claimed the president’s remarks showed why Russia was right to invade Ukraine in order to “neutralise” the “threats posed by the Kyiv regime”.
It came as US president Joe Biden warned that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was at its gravest since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, cautioning that Mr Putin is “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.”
Mr Putin has threatened to use “all the means at our disposal” to defend Russia. However, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow has not changed its position that a nuclear war must never be fought.
