A speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he suggested that NATO “preemptively attack” Russia drew criticism from the Kremlin and forced the Ukrainian government itself to provide clarification on Friday (7).
In a speech to Australian think tank Lowy held the day before by videoconference, Zelensky said the US-led military organization should attack Russian territory so that they “know what will happen to them if they use” nuclear weapons.
The Ukrainian leader was referring to a warning given by Vladimir Putin less than 20 days ago, when he announced the annexation of four occupied Ukrainian regions. At the time, the Russian president said he would use all means at his disposal to protect the areas, including atomic bombs, and concluded by saying that it was not a bluff.
Zelensky’s most recent speech was seen as an open threat of nuclear war by some of the top Russian government spokesmen, local news agencies reported.
The country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Zelensky “essentially presented the world with more evidence of the Kiev regime’s intimidation” and that his speech would justify the “special military operation” in Ukraine – that’s how the Russians refer to the invasion of Ukraine. neighbouring country.
A spokeswoman for the same ministry, Maria Zakharova called the Ukrainian leader a “puppet inflated by weapons”, “a monster whose hands can destroy the planet”. Dmitri Peskov, representative of the Kremlin, also condemned Zelensky’s appeal and said that he sought “to start another world war, with unpredictable, monstrous consequences”. Both accused the West of being behind the escalation of the conflict, the US and UK in particular.
The Ukrainian government, in turn, sought to minimize speech. The president’s spokesman said he was referring to preventive sanctions imposed by Western countries before the Ukrainian War, and assured that Ukraine would never advocate the use of nuclear weapons.
Ukraine formalized a request for rapid accession to NATO last Friday (30). The organization has been a central character in the Ukrainian War — one of the arguments listed by Russia to justify the invasion was the advance of the military alliance in its strategic neighbourhood.
Created in 1949, during the Cold War, initially with 12 countries, as a military front against the Soviet Union, NATO has expanded and has 30 members. Ukraine is considered a kind of ally.
The war started by Moscow in February of this year also pushed two other nations, previously militarily neutral, on the path of the alliance. In May, Finland and Sweden formalized applications to join NATO, which signed the membership agreement in July.
There is still ground for the entry to take place: the member countries of the alliance must approve, in their parliaments, the entry of the Nordic nations. The point of tension lies in Turkey, which, although it has agreed to support the two new members, has made a series of demands and is trying to balance friendly relations with Kiev and Moscow, insisting on projecting itself as a kind of moderator between West and East, especially in the case of war.
On Friday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reinforced that intention in a phone call with Putin. Relations between the two countries are complex, with close energy relations but significant disagreements over internal disputes in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan.
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