Zelensky: The authorities in Russia are preparing the population for a nuclear war

The authorities in Russia would have started preparing the population for a nuclear war, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky claims, in an interview with the BBC.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian officials had begun “preparing their society” for the eventual use of nuclear weapons in war.

“They’re starting to prepare their society. That’s very dangerous. They’re not ready to do it, to use it. But they’re starting to communicate. I don’t know if they’re going to use it or not. I think it’s dangerous to even talk about it.” , Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC.

The Ukrainian president added in Ukrainian: “What we see is that the population in power in Russia likes life, and therefore I think the risk of using nuclear weapons is not as clear as some experts say, because they understand that there is no way back after they- they used, not only for the history of their country, but also for themselves as personalities.”

Zelensky did not call for strikes on Russia

The Ukrainian leader has denied calling for strikes on Russia, calling instead for pre-emptive sanctions against Moscow.

In a discussion with an Australian think tank, Zelenskiy said on Thursday that he believed the strikes were necessary to rule out any use of nuclear weapons.

He did not go into detail about what kind of strikes he meant, but his remarks were denounced by the Kremlin as “a call to start a new world war”.

Speaking to the BBC, Zelensky said the word he used in Ukrainian had been misunderstood.

He said: “After this translation, the Russians did as they wanted, as it was useful to them, and began to re-translate it in other directions. I asked the world to act now, because Russia’s threats are a “risk for the whole planet. All that Putin fears is not a nuclear attack. He is afraid of his society, of his people. Because only this people can replace him, dispossess him of power and give it to another person”.

About 2,500 square kilometers of territory liberated in the last counteroffensive

The Ukrainian army has liberated almost 2,500 square kilometers of territory controlled by Russian forces during its latest counteroffensive launched at the end of September, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, AFP notes.

“This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometers of territory in the east of our country and 29 localities, six of which are in the Luhansk region. In total, 2,434 square kilometers of our territory and 96 localities have already been liberated since the start of this offensive operation”, he expressed his satisfaction in his daily speech published on social networks.

In recent days, Kiev’s troops have made a second important advance, in the Kharkiv area (northeast), but also in the south, near Kherson, a city controlled by the Russians.

In mid-September, the Ukrainian president indicated that his army had liberated nearly 6,000 square kilometers in a first counteroffensive launched in early September.

At the beginning of September, the Ukrainian army announced a counteroffensive in the south, then in the Kharkiv region, on the border with Russia in the northeast of the country, forcing Moscow’s soldiers to retreat to other positions.

Russian forces claimed the first gains in eastern Ukraine on Friday after a series of stinging setbacks on several fronts, but Kiev appears to have the upper hand, urging Russian soldiers to choose surrender.

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