Ukraine - Medvedev warns of nuclear war over cluster munitions

2023-07-08 14:52:45

“Perhaps the dying grandfather (meaning US President Joe Biden), plagued by sick fantasies, simply decided to step down nicely, provoke a nuclear Armageddon and take half of humanity with him,” said the deputy chief of the Russian National Security Council on Saturday.

The delivery of cluster munitions and the promise of NATO membership to Ukraine show that Biden has exhausted all other resources, Medvedev wrote on Telegram. But this would lead to a third world war, he threatened. The Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, had previously warned that the Third World War was approaching due to the ever-deeper involvement of the United States in the conflict.

The Russian Foreign Ministry sharply criticized the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine and spoke of an “act of desperation”. This is another “blatant revelation of the aggressive anti-Russian course of the United States, which aims at the maximum extension of the conflict in Ukraine and a war to the ‘last Ukrainian’,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a comment distributed on Saturday. More civilians would be killed by the cluster munitions.

The delivery was an “act of desperation” in view of the “failure of the widely advertised Ukrainian offensive”. Zakharova called the promise of the Kiev leadership that the ammunition would only be used against military targets worthless. “Washington, by supplying cluster munitions, becomes an accomplice in the mining of territories and thus fully shares responsibility for detonations, including those of Russian and Ukrainian children,” the spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres also criticized the US announcement. Guterres does not want “cluster munitions to continue to be used on the battlefield,” a spokesman said. Britain also maintains its opposition to cluster munitions. “The UK is a signatory to a convention banning the manufacture or use of cluster munitions – and we advise against using them,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Sky News at a campaign appearance in Selby, northern England, on Saturday.

Russia started its war of aggression against Ukraine 500 days ago. Medvedev, who was considered a rather liberal representative of the political establishment in Moscow during his time as Russian President from 2008 to 2012, has been trying to distinguish himself as a hardliner in Russia since the beginning of the war. He has already attracted attention several times with verbal abuse and threats – including nuclear ones – against the West.

Selenskyj emphasized perseverance

On the 500th day since the start of the Russian war of aggression against his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized his country’s will to persevere. Ukraine will “never be conquered by the occupiers, because we are the land of the brave,” Zelenskyy said in a video released on Saturday showing him visiting the symbolic Snake Island in the Black Sea.

The undated video, published online on Saturday, shows Zelenskyy arriving by boat on Snake Island in the Black Sea and laying flowers at a memorial site. “From here, from this place of victory, I would like to thank each of our soldiers for these 500 days,” said the Ukrainian president, referring to the duration of the Russian war of aggression.

Snake Island has been a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. On the first day of the invasion, the crew of the later sunk Russian warship “Moskva” had asked the Ukrainian border guards stationed on the island to surrender.

“F…k you, Russian warship!” A border guard responded in a radio message that made headlines around the world. A short time later, the Russian forces took the island. The Ukrainian soldiers were captured and later released in a prisoner exchange. At the end of June last year, the Ukrainian armed forces recaptured the island.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), more than 9,000 civilians have been killed since the war began, including 500 children. The war continues to take a “terrible toll” on the Ukrainian population, said HRMMU deputy chief Noel Calhoun on the occasion of the 500th day of Russia’s war of aggression.

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