Russia ‘not mad’ and US to blame for nuclear war risk, Putin says, as shelling on Ukraine continues and UK MP calls for BP to give money to Kyiv
- Putin says it’s the US that has deployed tactical nuclear weapons in other countries and Russia’s own arsenal is purely a deterrent
- Russian strikes in Ukraine killed at least 6 people on Wednesday and set buildings ablaze in Kurakhove in the east, Zelensky says
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the risk of a nuclear war was rising, but insisted Russia had not “gone mad” and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent.
“We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country,” he said. “But we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.”
Nevertheless, he said, Russia would defend its territory and its allies “with all available means”, adding that it was the United States, not Russia, that had deployed so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons in other countries.
He also repeated his position that Russia had had no choice but to intervene militarily in Ukraine, saying pro-Western revolutionaries had started “the war” there in 2014 when Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was overthrown after weeks of street protests.
02:41
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The remarks came as Russia continued its shelling of Ukraine. At least six people were killed and several buildings set ablaze in the town of Kurakhove in the east of the country, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Kyrylo Timoshenko, deputy head of Zelensky’s office, put the death toll higher. He said eight people had been killed and five wounded in the attack, in which a market, bus station, petrol stations and residential buildings came under fire.
“Terrorists attacked the peaceful town of Kurakhove,” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app under video footage of buildings in flames. “Terrorists are inhuman. And they will be held to account for it.”
Kurakhove is in the Donetsk region, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians but cities across Ukraine have been pummelled by Russian forces.
In the UK, an opposition lawmaker has called upon oil and gas company BP to channel its Russian funds into rebuilding Ukraine.
The Labour Party’s Margaret Hodge echoed a remark by an aide to Zelensky that any dividends BP received from its 19.75 per cent stake in the Russia’s state-backed Rosneft amounted to “blood money”.
“Will this government therefore work to persuade BP to donate the entirety of its Russian dividends to the reconstruction of Ukraine?” Hodge, a former minister under Labour, said in the House of Commons.
“And, if this fails, will [the treasury a minister under questioning] commit to act and force them to do so through a special windfall tax?”
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The campaign group Global Witness says BP is in line to earn an estimated £580 million (US$707 million) from Rosneft dividends so far this year.
BP, however, reiterated that a Kremlin law passed in reprisal for Western sanctions bars companies from “unfriendly states” such as Britain from repatriating their Russian earnings.
After announcing that it intended to relinquish the Rosneft stake, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, BP took a colossal first-quarter charge of US$24.4 billion.
Since then, the UK company says it has not counted Rosneft dividends in its earnings.
02:36
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Meanwhile in Russia, former defence reporter Ivan Safronov lost an appeal against a 22-year jail sentence for treason, amid concerns over increased state pressure on media outlets amid the Ukraine invasion.
Safronov, a reporter for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers who later worked as an adviser to the head of Russia’s space agency, was arrested in 2020 and accused of disclosing classified information.
His supporters called his sentencing in September an unjustified and draconian measure that showed the absence of media freedom in the country.
Speaking from the defendant’s cage before the ruling was announced, Safronov joked with reporters, and said he was writing a book. “Life goes on,” he said.
Prosecutors said Safronov, 32, shared state secrets about Russia’s arms sales in the Middle East with the Czech Republic’s foreign intelligence arm.
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He denied having disclosed any information that was not available from open sources, and rejected a plea deal in which he would have been sentenced to 12 years.
His defence team said the trial was retribution for Safronov drawing attention to Russia’s plans to sell fighter aircraft to Egypt. The estimated US$2 billion deal was scrapped soon afterwards, when the United States threatened to impose sanctions on Egypt if it went ahead.
During the trial, Safronov’s legal team published links to 19 published articles and government statements containing the purportedly secret information that he was alleged to have disclosed to Czech foreign intelligence.
The heavy sentence – more than Russian courts typically hand down in murder cases – was seen as a further blow against press freedom at a time when the Kremlin has intensified pressure on independent media outlets since sending its armed forces into Ukraine.
