Putin puts nuclear forces on alert, cites sanctions

KYIV (AP):

In a dramatic escalation of East-West tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin put Russian nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, in response to what he called “aggressive statements” by leading NATO powers.

The order means Putin has ordered Russia’s nuclear weapons to be prepared for increased readiness to launch, raising the threat that the tensions could boil over into nuclear warfare. In giving it, the Russian leader also cited hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including Putin himself.

Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin directed the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military’s general staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty”.

“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in televised comments.

The Russian leader this week threatened to retaliate harshly against any nation that intervened directly in the conflict in Ukraine, and he specifically raised the spectre of his country’s status as a nuclear power.

The US ambassador to the United Nations responded to the news from Moscow while appearing on a Sunday news programme.

“President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “And we have to continue to condemn his actions in the most strong, strongest possible way.”

ALARMING STEP

The alarming step came as street fighting broke out in Ukraine’s second-largest city and Russian troops squeezed strategic ports in the country’s south, advances that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere in the country.

The capital, Kyiv, was eerily quiet after huge explosions lit up the morning sky, and authorities reported blasts at one of the airports. Only an occasional car appeared on a deserted main boulevard, as a strict 39-hour curfew kept people off the streets. Terrified residents instead hunkered down in homes, underground garages and subway stations in anticipation of a full-scale Russian assault.

“The past night was tough – more shelling, more bombing of residential areas and civilian infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “There is not a single facility in the country that the occupiers wouldn’t consider as admissible targets.”

Following its gains to the east in the city of Kharkiv and multiple ports, Russia sent a delegation to Belarus for peace talks with Ukraine, according to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy suggested other locations, saying his country was unwilling to meet in Belarus because it served as a staging ground for the invasion.

Until Sunday, Russia’s troops had remained on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million about 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) south of the border with Russia, while other forces rolled past to press the offensive deeper into Ukraine.

Videos posted on Ukrainian media and social networks showed Russian vehicles moving across Kharkiv and Russian troops roaming the city in small groups. One showed Ukrainian troops firing at the Russians and damaged Russian light utility vehicles abandoned nearby.

The images underscored the determined resistance Russian troops face while attempting to enter Ukraine’s bigger cities. Ukrainians have volunteered en masse to help defend the capital, Kyiv, and other cities, taking guns distributed by authorities and preparing firebombs to fight Russian forces.

Ukraine’s government is also releasing prisoners with military experience who want to fight for the country, a prosecutor’s office official, Andriy Sinyuk, told the Hromadske TV channel on Sunday. He did not specify whether the move applied to prisoners convicted of all levels of crimes.