Russian leader Vladimir Putin has said he hopes he won’t have to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in an interview in which he can be seen chatting to a local journalist outside his Kremlin flat home – near his office – before he reveals what is inside.
He said Moscow has the strength and the means to bring the brutal conflict to a ‘logical conclusion,’ adding that the need to use nuclear weapons has not arisen, and he hopes it will not.
Putin’s comments were aired on Sunday in a film by Russian state television about his quarter of a century as leader.
Responding to a question about Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, he said: ‘There has been no need to use those (nuclear) weapons … and I hope they will not be required.’
‘We have enough strength and means to bring what was started in 2022 to a logical conclusion with the outcome Russia requires,’ he added.
In the film, Putin also said Russia did not launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – what he called a ‘special military operation’ – in 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea, because it was ‘practically unrealistic’.
‘The country was not ready for such a frontal confrontation with the entire collective West,’ he said.
He also claimed that Russia ‘sincerely sought to solve the problem of Donbas by peaceful means’. Putin said reconciliation with Ukraine is ‘inevitable’.
