RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin warns Ukraine about nuclear weapons

Moscow will never allow Kiev to acquire nuclear weapons and any attempt to do this would be met with an appropriate reaction, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that Kiev would need either atomic weapons or NATO membership to ensure its security. He rejected media reports that Kiev stood ready to produce an atomic bomb on short notice, saying that the nuclear talk was only meant to implythere was no alternative to the US-led military bloc.

“This is another provocation,” Putin said on Friday at a press conference for media from BRICS countries in Moscow. “This is a dangerous provocation because, obviously, any step in this direction will be met with an appropriate reaction.”

Ukraine’s political leadership has repeatedly expressed a desire for nuclear weapons, “even before the crisis turned hot,” the Russian president noted.

I can say this: Russia will not allow such a thing under any circumstances.

Making nuclear weapons in this day and age is “not that difficult,” Putin argued. He added, however, that he does not “know if Ukraine is capable of achieving this,” and that acquiring a nuclear arsenal “would not be that simple for Ukraine in its current state.”

Asked whether another country, such as the UK, could secretly provide Ukraine with atomic weapons, Putin said that it would be “impossible to hide,” and that Moscow is “capable of tracking down any movement in this direction.”

Last month, Putin announced a series of changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, expanding the criteria for the use of the strategic deterrent. The move came as Kiev was requesting that NATO countries lift the restrictions on the use of foreign-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia. The amended doctrine also extended Russia’s nuclear umbrella to Belarus.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Residents flee Ukraine's Kupiansk as Russia presses down on northeast hub

Yuliia Baibak could not bear another Russian air strike on her neighbourhood before complying with the order to evacuate her parents from the besieged Ukrainian city of Kupiansk.

A plea for mass evacuation was also issued on Friday for the city of Pokrovsk further south, a key target of Russian forces advancing westward through the Donetsk region.

Baibak, who was with her parents, was among the thousands slated for evacuation from Kupiansk and several surrounding settlements as Russian troops bore down on the strategic hub in Kharkiv region.

"I came (to my parents) all white, crying and scared, and said, 'Either we leave or they'll kill us all here,'" she said on Thursday while helping her wheelchair-bound mother to a car.

Kyiv's troops reclaimed Kupiansk six months after its capture by Russia in its February 2022 invasion, but it has come under increasing attack as Moscow steps up an offensive along the sprawling eastern front.

In the Donetsk region further south, Kremlin troops are advancing village-by-village to threaten other key transit hubs that supply much of Ukraine's eastern forces.

The head of Pokrovsk's military administration, Serhiy Dobrak, urged residents to evacuate as there was no way to provide essential services, the RBK Ukraine media outlet reported.

"It is already clear that there will be no heating in the city," Dobrak was quoted as saying. "I appeal to city residents -- if you see dragon's teeth (anti-tank traps) being installed nearby, do not delay, pack up and leave. It will be dangerous."

In Kupiansk, residents interviewed by Reuters reported sleepless nights under regular Russian fire across the area, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.

In some parts, Moscow's troops are as close as 4 kilometres from the city limits, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Ukrainian television this week.

He said he ordered the evacuation because constant Russian shelling had rendered repairs to local electricity, heat and water too difficult.

Speaking to reporters in Kharkiv on Thursday, Syniehubov said the priority was to evacuate the entire civilian population from the left bank of the Oskil River, or around 4,000 people.

The Defence Ministry's GUR Intelligence directorate issued a statement on Friday saying Ukrainian forces had cleared Russian troops from a village south of Kupiansk in a week-long operation. It said the village of Kruhlyakivka, was essential to the city's defence.

RT/Reuters