RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

The Kiev government is in the process of orchestrating a provocation involving a dirty bomb or a nuclear power plant incident, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said in an article published on Wednesday.

"Today we face the threat of a radiation disaster. Kiev is planning to commit a provocation by exploding a 'dirty bomb.' Detonation of such radiological explosive device will have the magnitude comparable to an explosion of a low-yield nuclear weapon. The blast wave will disperse radioactive substances over the area of up to several thousand square meters. Contaminated territories will turn into an exclusion zone for 30-50 years," the ambassador said in an article, posted on the embassy’s official Telegram channel.

According to him, the task of creating a dirty bomb was assigned to two Ukrainian organizations.

"Their work is at its final stage. Kiev has the necessary manufacturing base, scientific and technical capacity as well as stocks of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, which are the main components of a nuclear charge," the article says.

"An even more dangerous scenario, being considered by Kiev, is a provocation at nuclear power plants located in the territory controlled by Ukraine. This could lead to an accident comparable to the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters which the world has not yet recovered from," Antonov added.

Risk of clash between nuclear superpowers

The Russian ambassador went on to say that Russia was making every effort to warn the international community about the looming threat.

"Yet Washington shies away from our warnings, calling them ‘false’ and ‘groundless.’ It uses the formula ‘look who’s talking,’ as if unaware of how high the stakes are. Crystal clear is the aim of the Ukrainian authorities to make the provocation look like the use of a tactical nuclear weapon by Russia so that Kiev could pretend to be a victim and drag the United States and NATO directly into the conflict. To pit the nuclear powers against each other," Antonov wrote.

Meanwile, "the US keeps pretending that it does not see these dangerous trends."

"By justifying the Kiev regime, Washington itself is becoming a sponsor and accomplice of nuclear terrorism," the Russian diplomat added.

In his words, Moscow’s calls to the Washington administration are falling on deaf ears.

"More and more often do we hear reckless and provocative statements. A vivid example is the recent statement by the commanders of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army about their readiness to immediately join the fighting on the Ukrainian territory. Still, this kind of outbursts should no longer surprise us, for the aspiration to inflict a strategic defeat on our country is enshrined in the recently updated US National Security Strategy," Antonov went on.

"We are not starting the war. We are putting an end to it. The question is how far the US is willing to go. Will it be able to stop at a dangerous line?" he asked rhetorically.

The Russian envoy to Washington reiterated that "for more than eight years has the Kiev regime been consistently massacring the people of Donbass."

"Neo-Nazism, Russophobia, mass violations of human rights have become the backbone of the Ukrainian authorities’ policy. Those who think and speak Russian are stigmatized as ‘non-humans’ and urged to ‘get out.’ Those who disagree with Kiev's course are simply eliminated. Genocide is being carried out against the Russian-speaking population in all its terrible forms. We will never forget the atrocities in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa - when the Nazis burned innocent people alive," he wrote. "Ask yourself a question: Would you leave your sisters and brothers to be torn apart by the ones whose ideology is Nazism? Could you sleep peacefully knowing that the lives of the loved ones might be cut short at any minute?"

West’s ‘staggering hegemony’

In the ambassador’s opinion, "the Russian leadership made the only right decision - to launch a special military operation" on February 24 with the purpose of "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine" and "liberating people from repressions of the Kiev regime."

However, the West perceived this "as an infringement on its imaginary ‘rules-based order.’"

"It set the goal of preserving its staggering hegemony at any cost. Washington and its allies have turned Ukraine into a major anti-Russian bridgehead. At the same time, they did not conceal their readiness to fight Russia ‘to the last Ukrainian.’" Antonov wrote.

Since the beginning of the special operation the United States has provided $17.9 billion in military assistance to Kiev, the ambassador continued.

"Support of the revanchist sentiments of the Zelensky regime was put at the top of the US policy: flooding Ukraine with heavy weaponry, providing intelligence, deploying militants and advisers, instructing directly on how and where to strike," he added. "The Western hypocrisy culminated in turning a blind eye to Zelensky's statements about the intention to restore country’s status as a nuclear power. The world shuddered, but the West did everything possible to make these statements "drown" in the anti-Russian propaganda flow.".

*Italy’s government has traded barbs with the opposition over weapons shipments for Kiev, after a massive demonstration in Rome over the weekend called for peace and diplomacy in Ukraine.

Former PM Giuseppe Conte said that shirking political debate on Ukraine aid would be bullying democracy itself, in response to Defense Minister Guido Crosetto labelling him a “neighborhood bully.” 

Conte, who leads the Five Star Movement (M5S), addressed tens of thousands of Italians who rallied against the war on Saturday, telling them the new government’s approach is “leading only to escalation.” Now that Ukraine is “fully armed,” Italy needs to push for a ceasefire and peace talks, he said.

Crosetto is a founder of the ruling Brothers of Italy (FdI), and holds the defense portfolio in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s new government. He attacked Conte on the pages of the newspaper Corriere della Sera on Sunday, calling his remarks at the demonstration “meddling like a neighborhood bully” who did not respect the institutions of state. 

Conte must have developed this “authoritarian approach to institutions” during the pandemic lockdowns, Crosetto insinuated, telling the opposition politician that his ministry will “follow the law, as always,” in implementing the decisions of the previous government to send five batches of weapons to Kiev. Conte supported those decisions, Crosetto continued, but has now changed his mind in order to “exploit” the anti-war protest.

Firing back in a Facebook post on Sunday evening, Conte called Crosetto’s words an “unacceptable sentiment” coming from a government minister. Now that Italy doesn’t have a national unity government any more, he added, the question of arming Kiev is one of politics, and “such important choices do not escape from parliamentary confrontation. Otherwise we are the bullies: not of neighborhoods but of democracy.”

The public spat comes just days after the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported that Rome has de facto halted weapons shipments to Kiev, until the new government can sort out logistical and other problems, such as which weapons systems can be sent to Ukraine without rendering the Italian military combat-ineffective. 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces would not yield "a single centimetre" in battles for control of eastern Donetsk region while Russian-installed officials described Ukrainian forces moving into one southern town with tanks.

FIGHTING, CONFLICT

* The focal points of the conflict in the industrial region of Donetsk are around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar and Avdiivka, the theatre of the heaviest fighting in the country since Russian forces invaded their neighbour in late February.

* On Tuesday night, a Ukrainian military statement accused Russian troops of continuing to loot and destroy infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson, where a showdown has been looming for weeks in the only regional capital Russia has captured intact since its invasion.

* Russian artillery hit more than 30 settlements in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, and in Zaporizhzhia region the Russian-installed authorities were forcing residents to accept Russian passports after seizing their Ukrainian documents, the statement said.

* A Russian-installed mayor in the town of Snihurivka east of the southern city of Mykolaiv was cited by Russia's RIA news agency as saying on Tuesday that residents had seen Ukrainian tanks and that fierce fighting was going on.

Reuters was not able to verify the Ukrainian reports.

* Ukraine has received its first delivery of NASAMS and Apside air defence systems, its defence minister said.

* Putin said 50,000 Russian soldiers called up as part of his mobilisation drive were now fighting with combat units in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported.

DIPLOMACY

* Ukraine doubled down on its tough stance on negotiations with Russia, saying they could only resume once the Kremlin relinquishes all Ukrainian territory and that Kyiv would fight on even if it is "stabbed in the back" by its allies.

* The main condition for the resumption of negotiations with Russia would be the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, said the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov.

* A senior presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Ukraine had never refused to negotiate with Russia and was ready for talks with its future leader but not with Vladimir Putin. His comments followed a Washington Post report saying the Biden administration was privately encouraging Ukrainian leaders to signal an openness to negotiate.

TASS/RT/Reuters