Russia will try to provoke a discussion in the West that Ukraine needs to "forget" about these territories, analyst Maria Zolkina believes.
Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories in order to force Ukraine and the West to abandon de-occupation and "forget" about these lands.
Maria Zolkina, an Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation analyst, said this on the telethon air.
"The Russians are seeking to increase their nuclear blackmail. Now we clearly understand that the Russians will deploy, at minimum, tactical nuclear weapons in the territories now occupied," she said.
Zolkina believes that the Russian Federation will try to provoke a discussion in the West, and that Ukraine needs to "forget" about these territories so as not to provoke a nuclear strike from Russia on another Ukrainian territory.
"Especially if these are tactical nuclear weapons, then we understand that Ukraine will suffer, but European countries are unlikely to suffer," the expert added.
In her opinion, to stop this, Ukraine should try to liberate the occupied territories as soon as possible.
The opinion that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is seriously considering the possibility of a nuclear war was also expressed by Vadim Skibitsky, deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. "Perhaps Russia will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. They will try to stop our offensive activities and destroy our state," he said.
Although on the eve of Putin's speech, Andrei Gurulev, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, said that the target for Russia's nuclear strikes would not be Ukraine, but Germany and Great Britain. According to this deputy, it is "not interesting for Moscow" to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, because in his fantasies the Russians "will live here."
