Vladimir Putin’s main spokesman said trade and oligarch sanctions amounted to “all-out war” against Russia and that the West had “cornered” the Kremlin with NATO expansion, while officials braced for the resumption of peace talks with Ukraine prepare on Tuesday.
Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on American television that the punitive sanctions imposed on Russia were “quite unfriendly” and made the country feel at war with the US and its Western allies.
The interview came amid further claims by British and Ukrainian military intelligence that Russia’s war effort is in serious trouble.
With the Russian and Ukrainian sides set to meet in Turkey for a new round of negotiations, Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Russia would beef up its flagging war effort by sending more than 1,000 mercenaries from the private Wagner military group to eastern Ukraine as the Kremlin continued to suffer heavy casualties.
It was very likely that Russia was forced to transfer Wagner personnel from Africa and Syria to eastern Ukraine, said the Department of Defense.
Peskov said Russia was “afraid that NATO would move closer to our borders with its military infrastructure. Please take care of that. Don’t corner us. No.”
He described sanctions as “hostile, hostile to us. We have entered the phase, the phase of total war. And we in Russia will feel at war because the Western European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, they actually – they actually – they are at war against us in trade, in economy, in confiscation of our property, in confiscation of our funds by blocking our financial relationships.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy early Tuesday called for “effective and substantial” sanctions packages, targeting countries that imposed “passive sanctions” on Russia. “There should be no ‘suspended’ sanctions packages – if Russian troops do something, then there will be a response…” Zelenskyy said.
“Ukrainians shouldn’t die just because someone doesn’t have enough courage to give Ukraine the necessary weapons,” he said. “Fear always makes you an accomplice.”
He also urged countries to have the courage to continue supplying arms to Ukraine without fear of possible retaliation from Moscow.
Hailing the military success in Irpin and parts of Kiev, Zelenskyy said he was involved in a “very active diplomatic day” where he met British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Italians spoke Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
When asked if Russia would use nuclear weapons in the conflict, Peskov said “no one is thinking” about such a strategy and that Russia will achieve its military goals.
Ukrainian intelligence on Tuesday questioned Russia’s military capability, which claimed Putin was compensating for his “weakened, disoriented” force by attempting to destroy cities through “indiscriminate artillery fire and rocket bombing.”
The scathing intelligence assessments from Britain and Ukraine came as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were due to meet on Tuesday for peace talks in Turkey, where the main issues on the table are expected to be Ukraine’s neutrality and the status of contested territories to the east. Kyiv has made it clear that it will not compromise on territorial integrity.
However, the opening of talks could be overshadowed by reports that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and a Ukrainian peace negotiator suffered symptoms of poisoning earlier this month, according to a source with direct knowledge of the incident.
Abramovich was attending informal peace talks in Kyiv in early March when he began to feel ill, the source told the Guardian. Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov was also involved in the negotiations and was also reportedly affected.
Both men, who only consumed chocolate and water, were treated in Istanbul for symptoms that reportedly included vision loss and flaking skin. The report supports claims of possible poisoning first reported in the Wall Street Journal and by the investigative agency Bellingcat.
Putin’s failure to make significant gains in the early weeks of the war and fierce local opposition have strengthened Zelenskyy’s government. The Ukrainian President will be further heartened by the news that Ukrainian troops have regained control of the Kyiv commuter town of Irpin, which has been the scene of heavy fighting since the early days of the invasion. Ukrainian military intelligence said its forces continued to defend Kyiv and other cities including Motyzhyn, Lisne, Kapitanivka and Dmytrivka.
Ukrainian forces “continue to maintain circular defenses of the city of Mariupol and defend and prevent the enemy’s advance in the Chernihiv region,” the report added, although British intelligence said the Russians were gaining ground in Mariupol.
According to the mayor of the besieged southern city, nearly 5,000 people, including about 210 children, have been killed in Mariupol since Russia invaded Ukraine last month. Vadym Boichenko said Mariupol is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe and needs to be fully evacuated as about 160,000 civilians are trapped in the city without power.
His warning came as Amnesty International said on Tuesday that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is similar to its actions in the Syrian war, raising concerns about “war crimes” as civilian casualties rise a month after the invasion of Moscow.
“What is happening in Ukraine is a repeat of what we saw in Syria,” Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the Global Rights Watchdog, told AFP.
Joe Biden on Monday in Poland defended his unwritten remarks over the weekend that Putin “cannot stay in power,” saying it reflected his own moral outrage, not a change in government policy.
“I was neither then nor am I articulating a policy change now. I have expressed my moral outrage and I make no apologies,” said the US President. Biden added that he was “not going back” clarifying the remark. When asked if the remark would elicit a negative response from Putin, Biden said, “I don’t care what he thinks… He’s going to do what he’s going to do.”