Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, a once-breakaway region Putin reconquered two decades ago, congratulated "one of the most influential and outstanding personalities of our time, the number one patriot in the world".īut public celebratory events appeared tame. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a vocal supporter of the war, led birthday tributes for Putin with a prayer for God to "grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistances of visible and invisible enemies". "It encourages us in our resolve to support our Russian colleagues to continue their work at a new location, despite the forced dissolution of MEMORIAL International in Moscow," said a statement by Memorial board member Anke Giesen to Reuters. The Russian group, now operating in exile, said the award was recognition of its human rights work and of colleagues who continue to suffer "unspeakable attacks and reprisals" in Russia. "We always give the prize for something and to something, and not against someone," she told reporters. Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen denied that the awards were a statement against Putin. Memorial was honoured along with jailed Belarusian activist Ales Byalyatski and Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties. Sakharov had been named Memorial's first chairman shortly before his death in 1989. The Nobel Peace Prize for Memorial, the rights group shut down in Russia as illegal "foreign agents" last December, was the most open rebuke of Moscow's record by the prize committee since it bestowed the award on Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975. Putin was "not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, is significantly underperforming," Biden said.Ĭoncern so far has been over the prospect of Russia deploying a so-called "tactical" nuclear weapon - a short-range device for use on the battlefield - rather than the "strategic" weapons on long-range missiles that Washington and Moscow have stockpiled since the Cold War.īut Biden suggested it made little difference: "I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon." "For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they'd been going." "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," Biden said in New York. President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off over missiles in Cuba in 1962. Russia's failings on the battlefield have brought unusual public recrimination from Kremlin allies, with one Russian-installed leader in occupied Ukrainian territory going so far as to suggest Putin's defence minister should have shot himself.īiden said the prospect of defeat could make Putin desperate enough to use nuclear weapons, the biggest risk since U.S. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv's forces were swiftly recapturing more territory, including more than 500 sq km in the south where they burst through a second major front this week. A Ukrainian human rights group and a jailed campaigner against abuses by the pro-Russian government in Belarus were also awarded. In a clear repudiation of Putin's record, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Russia's most prominent human rights group, Memorial, which Moscow shut down over the past year. But with his seven-month invasion unravelling, public events appeared sparse, a contrast to just a week ago, when he staged a huge concert on Red Square to proclaim the annexation of nearly a fifth of Ukrainian land. Putin celebrated his 70th birthday to fawning praise from some officials. NEW YORK/KYIV, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine has brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |