Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should visit Ukraine “as soon as possible”, and the Russian president accused the neighboring country of erasing evidence that it was preparing a “dirty bomb”, AFP reported.

“The IAEA wants to come (…). We are advocating that it be done as soon as possible and on the largest possible scale, because we know that the authorities in Kyiv are doing everything to hide the traces of these preparations,” he said at the Valdai Forum in Moscow.

“We are working on it,” he said.

“We even know roughly where (in Ukraine) it is being done,” the Russian leader added, answering a question about Russia’s accusation of a “dirty bomb” being prepared by Kyiv.

According to him, Ukraine wants to use such radioactive weapons, “so that later it can be said that it was Russia that carried out a nuclear strike,” Putin said, stressing that he himself asked his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to “report” his Western colleagues.

In recent days, Shoigu actually held talks with the American, Chinese, French, Turkish and British defense ministers, exchanges of unprecedented intensity – within a few hours – since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24.

Since then, Ukraine and its Western allies have widely condemned Russia’s “blatantly false” accusations.

Vladimir Putin also downplayed his previous comments about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, saying he was only responding to threats from his opponents.

“We never talked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons. We only hinted at it in response to the statements of other countries,” said the President of the Russian Federation.

According to him, Ukraine and the West claim that Moscow is playing nuclear escalation in order to “influence neutral countries to say: ‘Look at Russia! Do not cooperate with her!”

Follow the latest developments from The 246th day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.