Russia's President Vladimir Putin would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in case Ukraine attempted to recover a key territory, according to an expert who said it was reported in July 2022.
Alexei Venediktov, a former editor-in-chief and co-owner of the recently banned Radio station Echo of Moscow, was quoted by Piontkovsky, a self-exiled dissident. Venediktov was reasoned to be credible by Piontkovsky. Venediktov couldn't come up with that on his own because he is too concerned with his role as a civil society representative, according to Yahoo News.
Why It Matters: Piontkovsky pointed out a particular example of a target city in the report - the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
These conversations took place, further indicating their despair and madness that Putin has nothing left but nukes, said Piontkovsky. But even if he annihilates, says Lviv with a nuclear strike, killing a million people what that would change in this war? Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russians after hostilities began in February 2022, according to The New York Times.
According to a previous report, the Russian army has taken some territory around the southern coastal regions north of Crimea around Kherson.
Putin recently told his generals to concentrate on the Donetsk province after capturing Ukraine's Luhansk region.