MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Sunday that Russia had sufficient strength and resources to take the war in Ukraine to its logical conclusion, though he hoped that there would be no need to use nuclear weapons. In a film by state television about Putin's quarter of a century as Russia's paramount leader entitled "Russia, Kremlin, Putin, 25 years", Putin was asked by a reporter about the risk of nuclear escalation from the Ukraine war. "They wanted to provoke us so that we made mistakes," Putin said, speaking beside a portrait of Tsar Alexander III, a 19th century conservative who suppressed dissent. "There has been no need to use those 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."
Trump has been signalling for weeks that he is frustrated by the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to reach terms to end the war, though the Kremlin has said that the conflict is so complicated that the rapid progress Washington wants is difficult. Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the attack as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces, which control about a fifth of Ukraine.
Putin portrays the war as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging Nato and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence. Trump has warned that the conflict could develop into World War Three. Former CIA Director William Burns has said there was a real risk in late 2022 that Russia could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, an assertion dismissed by Moscow.
In the carefully choreographed state television film, which gave viewers a rare look behind the notoriously closed life of the Russian president, Putin was shown offering chocolates and a fermented Russian milk drink to Pavel Zarubin, a top Kremlin correspondent, in his private Kremlin kitchen. Putin said that he first knelt in prayer during the 2002 Nord-Ost Moscow theatre crisis when Chechen militants took over 900 people hostage. More than 130 hostages were killed. "I don't feel like some kind of politician," Putin said of his 25 years in power as president and prime minister. "I continue to breathe the very same air as millions of Russian citizens. It is very important. God willing that it continues as long as possible. And that it doesn't disappear."
Meanwhile, a Russian overnight drone attack on Ukraine's capital injured at least 11 people, including two children, and President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Sunday for a real ceasefire lasting at least a month in the more than three-year-old war. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week declared a three-day ceasefire for May 8-10 to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two, a move appeared aimed at signalling that Russia is still interested in peace.
Zelensky reiterated his calls for a longer halt in the fighting that began when Moscow launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. "The Russians are calling for a ceasefire ... while striking Ukraine every single day. This is top-level cynicism: just this week alone, Russia has used over 1,180 attack drones, 1,360 guided aerial bombs, and 10 missiles of various types against Ukraine," Zelensky said on the X social media platform. "If there's a ceasefire - then not for their holidays, but for every day," he added.
Falling debris from destroyed drones started fires at residential buildings in Kyiv's Obolonskyi and Sviatoshynskyi districts, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on social media. Ukraine's emergency service said on the Telegram messaging app that 76 firefighters were involved in putting out the overnight fires in the city, which also included a small blaze in the central Shevchenkivskyi district. — Reuters
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