The Russian-Ukrainian war. The ninth day. Putin's nuclear blackmail

Baku/04.03.22/Turan: Today is the ninth day of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The Russian army attacked the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Ukraine, a major catastrophe could happen.

Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky called the agreements reached with the Ukrainian side following the second round of negotiations a significant step forward. For example, the parties agreed on humanitarian corridors for the population.

In turn, Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said that the Russians were gradually lowering their demands, stopped talking about denazification, preventing the deployment of certain types of offensive weapons in Ukraine, and started talking about the non-bloc status of Ukraine. Also, according to him, a theoretical agreement has been reached regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance or humanitarian corridors to the encircled cities in Ukraine suffering from Russian aggression.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Sergei Chemezov, Alisher Usmanov, Nikolai Tokarev, Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, Igor Shuvalov, and Putin's chief chef Yevgeny Prigozhin.

According to the US administration, these individuals and their families will be cut off from the US financial system, their assets in the United States will be frozen, and their property will be blocked for use.

President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that if Ukraine is defeated, then the next victims of Russian aggression will be the Baltic countries, Poland, Georgia and others.

According to the British newspaper “The Times”, there have been at least three assassination attempts on Zelensky over the past week, said the journalists of the British newspaper “The Times”. According to them, two different groups were sent to assassinate the Ukrainian leader - Wagner PMC mercenaries and Chechen special forces. Each time, the assassination attempts were thwarted thanks to the Russian FSB, who opposed the war with Ukraine, writes the British edition.

Political scientist Ahmed Alili commented on the latest events in Ukraine to the "Difficult Question" program.

According to him, Putin, in all likelihood, decided that if he forced the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and fulfilled his demands, then by threatening a nuclear catastrophe, he would achieve that one of the European leaders would put pressure on the Ukrainian leader.

For example, the penetration of Russian troops into the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the message of the EU and the United States - that now a catastrophe will happen there, that the war must be stopped at all costs.

“This is a kind of blackmail. But nothing worked out for Putin in Chernobyl - after the counterattack of the Ukrainian troops, the Russians had to retreat,” Alili said.

He recalled that following this, on February 27, on Russian TV channels, Putin ordered his defense minister and chief of the General Staff to increase the level of combat readiness of the deterrence force (i.e., nuclear forces), transferring them to a “special alert mode” (although, according to military experts - such a regime does not exist - Ed.)

“An attempt to seize the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a demonstrative order to increase the level of combat readiness of the containment forces and what is happening today at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant are links in the same chain - this is blackmail,” the political scientist says.