The Russian Federation may resort to nuclear provocations in the temporarily occupied Crimea and Belarus.
A representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Yusov informed about this on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel.
"There is information that the temporarily occupied Crimea and the territory of modern Belarus are considered by Putin to carry out this kind of provocations. All this information is tracked," he noted.
At the same time, according to Andrii Yusov, even the Kremlin understands that such a step will be the last for Putinʼs regime.
- Russian politicians and propagandists often directly called for nuclear tactical strikes on decision-making centers, in particular in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia thus began to prepare its society for a nuclear strike. The Ukrainian authorities do not yet believe in the use of these weapons by Russia, but do not reject this option.
- NATO declared that a Russian nuclear attack would cause a "physical response", and the EU promised a powerful response, up to the destruction of the Russian army.
- At the end of October 2022, Putin spoke at the Valdai discussion club. He devoted the entire speech to the West and compared it to a dictatorship. He said that Russia is not threatening a nuclear strike, but is only "responding to nuclear blackmail." At the same time, Putin said that as long as nuclear weapons exist, the world will always be in danger.
- At the time, Joe Biden said he was skeptical of Putinʼs claim that he had no intention of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine. “If he doesnʼt have that intention, why does he keep talking about it? Why is he talking about the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons? Heʼs very dangerous in his approach to this," Biden declared.
- On January 2, the MDI reported that Russia has all types of nuclear weapons in its arsenal, both tactical and strategic, and Ukrainian intelligence constantly monitors their movements.