The Russian defence ministry said it packed “about 3.5 tons of TNT and 5 FAB-100 bombs” into the tank.
The threat of Russian president Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”, his US counterpart Joe Biden said, days after denouncing Russia’s deployment of such weapons in Belarus. Mr. Biden had termed Mr. Putin’s announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus “absolutely irresponsible” last week. When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” Mr Biden said in California.
“They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real.”
This comes as Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said his country has started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Kremlin accuses NATO of ‘pumping up’ nuclear talk
A Kremlin spokeswoman on Thursday appeared to tamp down controversy over any nuclear option in Ukraine and blamed NATO for an escalation in nuclear rhetoric.
“The Russian Federation is fully committed to the principle of the inadmissibility of nuclear war,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Zakharova said she won’t “participate in pumping up the degree of nuclear rhetoric,” saying it served the interests of NATO countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in announcing a partial military mobilisation for his country last month, vowed to use “all available means” to deter attacks against Russia, an allusion to Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg then warned of “severe consequences for Russia” if Putin were to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The U.S. issued a similar warning.
Missile attacks draw close to Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
Russia launched two missile attacks Thursday that hit more than 40 apartment buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, close to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, authorities said. At least seven people were killed and five were missing, regional Gov. Oleksandr Starukha said.
The strikes came hours after Ukraine announced that Russian occupation forces had been driven out of three more villages in regions illegally annexed by Moscow.
Each side has blamed the other for rocket attacks roaring harrowingly close to the Zaporizhzhia plant. Putin on Wednesday declared the planet Russian property, a decree quickly rejected by Ukraine.
Ukraine regains 150 square miles of land in expanding counteroffensive
Image source:The New York Times
As Ukraine consolidates the territory it has recaptured in the northeastern Kharkiv province, it continues to make gains in the east and south of the country.
Since the start of October, Kyiv’s forces have taken back more than 150 square miles of land in the southern Kherson province that had fallen to the Russians early in the war, Ukraine’s southern military command said Thursday. Spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk added the situation along the southern front remains fluid.
At the same time, the Ukrainian counteroffensive that drove Russian troops out of Kharkiv and across the border has extended to the neighboring provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, which make up the industrial Donbas region that Russia covets. Among the prize gains was the strategically important city of Lyman.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials announced Wednesday the retaking of villages in those provinces. Zelenskyy proclaimed, “The return of the Ukrainian flag means that a peaceful and socially secure life is once again possible for Donbas.”
