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Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Putin gives nuclear warning, Biden rallies allies

Feb 22 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been sparring verbally, presenting starkly different views of the world and the Ukraine war, with Biden promising to defend democracies and Putin asserting the West was a threat to Russia.
Reuters
By Reuters
22 Feb
Brooks-Putin-crown option 1 Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an informal annual summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States heads of state at the Konstantin Palace presidential residence in Strelna, outside St Petersburg, Russia, 7 October 2022. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Alexei Danichev / Sputnik / Kremlin Pool)

DIPLOMACY

  • Putin in Moscow on Tuesday delivered a nuclear warning to the West over Ukraine, suspending a bilateral nuclear arms control treaty, announcing new strategic systems were on combat duty and warning that Moscow could resume nuclear tests.
  • Putin said: "The elites of the West do not hide their purpose ... They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly, because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country."
  • Biden, fresh from pledging support for Ukraine on an unannounced visit to Kyiv, was in Poland making his case for a sustained Western effort to ensure Kyiv wins the war.
  • Biden said: "When Russia invaded, it wasn't just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages."

He said the United States and its NATO allies stood up for freedom and democracy and "there should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire".

  • China is "deeply worried" that the Ukraine conflict could spiral out of control, Foreign Minister Qin Gang said, and he called on certain countries to stop "fuelling the fire" in an apparent dig at the United States.
  • Any peace that entails the surrender of Ukraine to invading Russian forces "cannot be a real peace". Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said while visiting Kyiv.

 

SANCTIONS

  • Financial leaders of the Group of Seven will meet on Thursday to discuss measures against Russia, Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said.
  • U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Washington and its allies will impose new sanctions and export controls in "coming days" to ratchet up pressure on Russia to end the war and crack down on companies and individuals who are helping Moscow evade sanctions.

 

FIGHTING

  • Near Bakhmut, the focal point of Russian advances in the eastern region of Donetsk, 18 towns and villages came under fire, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on Tuesday night.
  • The Russian defence ministry said its troops had made a 2.5 km (1.5 miles) advance towards the city of Bakhmut, seen by the Kremlin as a main staging post in capturing other towns further west in Donetsk region.

Comments

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Cunningham 22 February 2023 07:59 AM

The suspension of the nuclear agreement by Russia is a testament to their rogue character. If they resume nuclear tests, it is what they were going to do anyway as they have always used this as a blackmail to the rest of the world whenever they would bring the issue of their new junior status in the global geopolitical configuration. That there is a group of rogues at the helm of the Russian Federation was exposed with the invasion of Georgia and annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with flimsy excuses related to the the imperial designs of Putin and Medvedev. This emboldened the thugs and in 2014 they annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The world tried to appease Russia and we had various iterations of the Minsk Agreements to assure the thugs that it was not in the interests of NATO to go to war with Russia. Emboldened by the weak response of the global community and internal political turmoil in Ukraine, the thugs moved to attack Ukraine to annex large swathes of its territory because in Putin's twisted logic Ukraine cannot be a country but the pretext has always been NATO expansion. A poppycock believed by its permanent stooges. The world was no longer going to tolerate a lumpen to dictate to other countries and to willy nilly use force and has responded appropriately and will not be blackmailed by a tinpot dictator who is abusing his citizens. The decisive battles must ensure that the barbarians are expelled from Ukraine irrespective of their tantrums.