The commander of separatist forces in Donetsk says Russia cannot win the war in Ukraine by conventional means and is calling for the use of nuclear weapons against NATO, contradicting statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin days ago.

“You know, we are aware of our current capabilities. We have several units that rotate in order to be able to recover at their bases in Russia, new battalions have been formed and are being formed now,” Oleksandr Khodakovsky begins his request, citing as an example the battalion formed in the city of Yekaterinburg. which will now be transferred to the front.

He then goes on to talk about how well trained and equipped this battalion, called Ural 1, would have been, stating that it was mainly made up of “drummers”.

“However, we understand that our resources, of course, have limits. And the next spiral of escalation can only be one – nuclear,” the Russian commander urges.

“Therefore, if, for example, NATO countries cross certain boundaries (…), we cannot say that they only supply or sell weapons. [Ucrainei]”, he continues his request, referring in this connection to the alleged statements of German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht about tests of Gepard anti-aircraft armor in Ukraine.

The Russian commander says that Russia has nuclear weapons

“Now they are directly involved!” Khodakovsky said of NATO members, a propaganda line that has been repeated in Moscow in recent months to justify the defeats suffered by Ukraine’s much smaller forces on paper before Vladimir Putin launched the February 24 invasion.

“Therefore, they (NATO countries) are very close to crossing this red line. So everyone understands that the next spiral of escalation can only be the nuclear stage of the war,” says the commander of the Donetsk separatists.

“And as far as the West is ready for the situation to develop in this direction, I don’t think so, because they constantly emphasize that this cannot be allowed in any case,” he reasoned.

“We did not have this potential, we are a country fighting against the entire Western world, and we do not have the resources to defeat the NATO bloc by conventional means. But we have nuclear weapons for that. We created them specifically for such situations,” concludes Oleksandr Khodakovsky.

What Vladimir Putin recently said about the use of nuclear weapons

Khodakovsky’s comments came after Denys Pushylin, the leader of Donetsk’s occupation administration, said on Tuesday that Moscow’s forces control just over 50 percent of Donetsk Oblast, which Vladimir Putin declared annexed by Russia in late September.

But in comments made just a week ago, the Kremlin leader distanced himself somewhat from previous threats to use Russia’s nuclear arsenal, saying that while the danger of nuclear war was growing, Russia would not be the first to use nuclear weapons.

During the annual televised meeting of the Russian President’s Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, Putin insisted that Russia has not “gone mad” and considers its own nuclear arsenal only a purely defensive deterrent.

“We are not crazy, we know what nuclear weapons are. We have these facilities in a more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country, this is an obvious fact. But we are not going to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor,” Vladimir Putin said.

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