putin will not dare to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine — US Senator
According to US Senator Jim Risch, a Republican, it is unlikely that russia's war against Ukraine will escalate into a nuclear war, and the K\kremlin will not dare to use nuclear weapons.
He said this on the sidelines of the Halifax Security Forum, where he arrived as the head of the Congress delegation, EP reports.
The senator agreed that the very fact of the presence of nuclear weapons already creates the probability of their use, but in this case, it is unlikely.
"I think there are two things that putin will not do during this war. First, he will not dare to use nuclear weapons. Second, he will not dare to attack NATO member states. He believes that should he attack any of the allied nations, he would face a response from 30 (soon to be 32) member states. We truly believe that an attack on one of us would be an attack on all of us. As for nuclear weapons, then the safeguard is that this will turn the world away from him. Because to start a nuclear holocaust is beyond comprehension," Jim Risch explained.
In his opinion, one of the safeguards against this, in the conditions when russia will be forced to choose between a final retreat or using all the possibilities available, should be the creation of an "exit point" for putin from the war. "We can now see from the news that putin's authority in russia is decreasing every day. That is why he needs such an exit that will allow ending the war while simultaneously putting the entire territory of Ukraine under the control of the Ukrainians," the senator noted.
At the same time, he clarified that he does not mean any territorial concessions to the aggressor on the part of Ukraine, for example, Crimea. However, the retreat of the russian federation from the occupied peninsula would clearly be a signal to russian society that putin lost the war.
"This, of course, is a question for Ukraine — what it should agree to and what it should not. But there is also international law, according to the norms of which one state cannot start a war against another to take its territory. To allow this would be a violation of the UN Charter and principles of international law… I don't know how putin plans to solve this problem. That's a question for him. I only know that Crimea is Ukraine," Jim Risch noted.
