VLADIMIR Putin is playing “nuclear blackmail” with his new hypersonic missiles and his threats are a bluff, his ex-Prime Minister says.
Putin has threatened to turn Kyiv “to dust” with his new Oreshnik bombs – saying multiple strikes would be akin to a nuclear bomb.
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But Mikhail Kasyanov, who was PM during Putin’s first presidency, said Putin is “undertaking nuclear blackmailing”.
Kasyanov said the tyrant is bluffing as he seeks to draw concessions from the West.
He told Times Radio: “Any concession, diplomatic concession, he (Putin) takes as a weak link. That’s why he’s raising the stakes. He’s already undertaking nuclear blackmailing.
“That’s exactly the way he’s playing. The current US administration, the current German government, they are subject of this blackmailing and they’re afraid of Mr. Putin.”
Kasyanov said the use of nuclear weapons would not bring any success to Putin and it would be condemned by countries – even allies like China.
He said: “They [the West] don’t understand that Mr. Putin is afraid of nuclear weapons more than them.
“Because he understands what the reply would be.
“Not nuclear in their reply, but an ordinary normal military reply which will destroy the whole military infrastructure and Putin’s administration just physically.”
Volodymyr Zelensky has shot back at Putin’s threats, saying he is trying to escalate the war to prevent peace.
Zelensky said tonight: “He has no interest in ending this war. Moreover, Putin wants to prevent others from ending this war.
“His current sabre-rattling with ‘oreshnik’ is aimed solely at disrupting the efforts of President Trump that are sure to follow his inauguration.”
Donald Trump has pledged to get end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on “day one”.
That will likely mean the US negotiates directly with Russia, something the Biden administration has been unwilling to do.
Trump would freeze the conflict in place and establish a demilitarised zone down the locked front line, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
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Kyiv would not join Nato for 20 years, but the US would continue to arm Ukraine to the teeth to prevent Putin from invading again.
Who would police the demilitarised zone remains unclear, according to the sources, but it wouldn’t involve American troops or an international body.
An anonymous member of the Trump team said: “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European.
“We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”
Trump appointed ex-Lieutenant General Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia with the military ace expected to lead peace negotiations in 2025.
Kellogg hopes his plan for ending the war will convince Putin to back off with his ambitions to regain Soviet territory.
Ukraine was granted permission by doddery Joe Biden to use long-range US-supplied missiles.
The use of the ATACMS weapons were seen as a drastic escalation of war by the Kremlin as Putin fired up the threat of nuclear retaliation.
Kellogg is expected to speak to both Kyiv and Moscow when Trump enters The White House in January as he searches for solutions.
Trump’s win means ‘high risks but higher possibilities’ for Ukraine war
Oleksiy Goncharenko, Ukrainian MP, has told Times Radio that Donald Trump in the White House means “higher risks but higher possibilities
The MP said Trump’s unpredictability could work in Ukraine’s favour because the president-elect “doesn’t want his own Afghanistan” like Biden’s withdrawal near the start of his term.
When asked if and how Trump can end the war in Ukraine in just 24 hours, as he has previously claimed, the MP said:
“Yes he can, I think, but the question is what is the price and how he sees it. I don’t know.
“From a Ukrainian perspective, I think that Donald Trump is definitely higher risks, but also higher possibilities for Ukraine.
“Kamala Harris was more predictable, Donald Trump is less predictable. What he will do, and how it will end, we don’t know for the moment.
“But, Donald Trump already in his victory speech said about oil, which is very important.
“If Donald Trump drops the oil price in the world, that can have a super effect more than anything else on the war in Ukraine and on the Russian regime in general. So it’s just one example. I mean, the situation is not black and white.
“I think that Donald Trump, who is a super winner, especially now after such a victory, he doesn’t want to be a loser.
“He doesn’t want to receive his own Afghanistan like Biden received at the beginning of his term.”
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