Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Wednesday that his “special military operation” in Ukraine is taking longer than anticipated, but said he has been successful in seizing Ukrainian territories, adding that his country’s nuclear weapons serve as a tool of deterrence in conflict.
“Of course, it could be a long process,” Putin said of the war that began on February 24 and has driven millions from their homes and caused tens of thousands of deaths and injuries. Despite the fact that the conflict has dragged on for more than 9 months, the Russian president showed no sign that he would relent, vowing to “consistently fight for our interests” and “protect us with all available means.” He reiterated his claim that he had no choice but to send in soldiers, since for years Western countries responded to Russia’s security demands with “spit in the face.”
Speaking to the presidential Human Rights Council, Putin said the land grab is “a significant outcome for Russia,” and that the “Azov Sea has become Russia’s internal sea.” In one of his frequent historical references to a Russian leader he admires, he added that “Peter the Great fought for access” to said sea.
After failing to capture kyiv in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, Russia seized wide swaths of southern Ukraine early in the invasion and captured the major port city of Mariupol in May after a nearly three-month siege. In September, Putin illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions, though his forces did not fully control them. These were: Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east. In 2014, he had illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
Responding to the increasing flow of advanced weapons and economic, political and humanitarian aid from Western countries to kyiv, and to what he sees as inflammatory statements by Western leaders, Putin has regularly hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons. And when asked by a member of the Human Rights Council to promise that Russia would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, Putin said that Russia could not use such weapons at all if it promised not to be the first and then suffered a nuclear attack.
“If you don’t use them first under any circumstances, it means you won’t be the second to use them because the possibility of using them in the event of a nuclear attack on our territory would be severely limited,” Putin said.
The Russian president rejected Western criticism that such statements amounted to nuclear threats, stating that they were not “a factor causing an escalation of conflicts, but a deterrent factor.”
“We are not crazy. We are fully aware of what nuclear weapons are,” Putin said. “We have them and they are more advanced than any other nuclear power.”
