Ukraine Appeals Emergency Security Council Meeting To Address Russia’s ‘Nuclear Blackmail’

According to foreign media reports, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that Ukraine expects the United Kingdom, China, the USA and France, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, to take effective measures to counter the Kremlin’s ‘nuclear blackmail’ and demand an immediate emergency meeting of UN Security Council.

The statement calls on the G7 and the EU to put pressure on Belarus. Ukraine accuses Russia of violating its obligations and undermining the nuclear disarmament structure as well as the entire international security system. Also, Ukraine calls for the international community to make it clear to the Putin regime that Russia’s recent nuclear provocations are absolutely unacceptable. Ukraine says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is treating this country as a “nuclear hostage”, noting that the move is “a step towards the internal destabilization of the country”.

France on Sunday condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move and called on Russia to assume the responsibilities of a country with nuclear weapons and renounce this destabilizing agreement. The German Foreign Ministry said that Russia’s move was a further attempt at nuclear intimidation, stressing that Germany would not be deterred. NATO also accused Putin of making “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called Putin’s announcement an extremely dangerous escalation. The organization said, “It increases the risk of the use of nuclear weapons by adding more actors, who might potentially have the ability to drop nuclear bombs, and create potential for chaos and miscommunication,” “These weapons, if used, would have similar or greater results than what we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They can cause huge catastrophic harm.”