German Foreign Minister Annalina Birbock has expressed concern about the repeated threats by the Russian President to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war, but at the same time stressed that the German government will not allow it to be blackmailed.
Speaking to the German newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, the Green Party minister said: “We take his words very seriously, and anything else would be negligent.”
Birbock added that Putin has repeatedly shown that he has no qualms about committing the worst war crimes.
And the German minister added that Putin realizes at the same time that “no country in the world, not even one that has not taken a clear position so far, such as China, will simply accept playing with fire on this issue.”
“We should not and will not accept blackmail because this would invite Putin to further escalate,” Birbock said.
Bierbock stressed that Germany will continue to support Ukraine “responsibly”, expressing her conviction that the Russian president is losing support at the international level. “There is hardly a country in the world that stands behind Putin, and hundreds of thousands of young Russians are fleeing the country.
The Russian president is lonely and isolated as never before.”
Russia had declared that it would defend its territory by any means necessary, which led to speculation about the use of nuclear weapons in light of the Ukrainian annexations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that Russia’s military doctrine states that nuclear force is permissible only if “Russia’s existence” is endangered, adding that “the use of the right words is very important.
It is noteworthy that Putin had announced, in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the status of the “deterrence force”, which includes a nuclear component, on alert.
US President Joe Biden has threatened dire consequences if Russia uses tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in Ukraine.