Ukraine war: Russian spy chief blames West for nuclear tension

Western leaders person expressed interest astir the standard of atomic sabre-rattling implicit Ukraine by elder Russian officials, including President Putin, particularly aft February's invasion.

How does Moscow respond to charges it is engaging successful specified rhetoric and threats?

I asked 1 of Russia's astir almighty officials, Sergei Naryshkin, caput of the SVR Foreign Intelligence Service, to respond to planetary criticism.

He denied immoderate Russian atomic rhetoric, adjacent though there's been plenty.

Mr Naryshkin pointed the digit backmost astatine the West.

"Will you authorities categorically that Russia volition not usage atomic weapons successful Ukraine oregon prosecute successful different provocative actions, specified arsenic exploding a soiled bomb, oregon blowing up a dam?" I asked Mr Naryshkin.

Russia's spy main didn't reply the question directly. "We are, of course, precise acrophobic astir Western rhetoric astir the anticipation of utilizing atomic weapons," Sergei Naryshkin responded.

"Yesterday Russia's defence curate talked by telephone with his colleagues from Turkey, the US and France. He told them astir the imaginable plans of the Ukrainian enactment to usage a alleged 'dirty atomic bomb'," Mr Naryshkin continued.

"But determination is nary grounds to backmost up that claim," I pointed out.

On Sunday the UK, US and French governments issued a associated connection connected the Russian government's claims. They rejected what they called "Russia's transparently mendacious allegations" against Kyiv, adding: "The satellite would spot done immoderate effort to usage this allegation arsenic a pretext for escalation. We further cull immoderate pretext for escalation by Russia."

I was speaking to Sergei Naryshkin astatine the opening of an accumulation astatine the Russian Army Museum.

It is simply a sobering acquisition - an accumulation that transports you backmost to a clip erstwhile the satellite was connected the borderline of atomic Armageddon.

It marks the 60th day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the partition determination is simply a elephantine photograph of Soviet person Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F Kennedy. There are images of the Soviet missiles Moscow sent to Cuba, and which the Kennedy White House demanded the Kremlin remove.

In the eyes of Vladimir Putin's Russia, what are the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

"The acquisition of the Cuban Missile situation is that governmental leaders indispensable find the interior spot to scope compromises to resoluteness planetary problems," Sergei Naryshkin told me.

It's existent that Kennedy and Khrushchev compromised to extremity a perchance devastating crisis. Khrushchev removed atomic missiles from Cuba; Kennedy promised to region American missiles from Turkey.

But six decades on, determination is nary motion that Russia's existent leader, Vladimir Putin, is prepared to compromise. Once much determination is interest astir a imaginable atomic conflict.

And yet the warfare successful Ukraine is precise antithetic from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Back successful February the Kremlin person invaded a neighbouring country, a sovereign state; the warfare has been raging for 8 months. Despite large setbacks connected the battlefield, President Putin inactive seems determined to unafraid immoderate benignant of victory, some implicit Ukraine and against the West.