Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 19: Amidst the horrifying destruction of Ukrainian lives and property under the continuous Russian shelling has come the relief for the world, Russia promising to fight the war only with the conventional weapons and not to use nuclear arsenal.
When the worried western world were expressing the apprehension that Russia, unable to run over Ukraine as quickly as it hoped to, might fall back on the nuclear arsenal, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday categorically stated that Russia would not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“Russia will use only conventional weapons in Ukraine,” Lavrov said in response to a question about the possible use of nuclear arms in the war. The comments are among the most categorical from a senior Russian official on the issue, although Lavrov isn’t directly responsible for military decision-making.
Western intelligence officials have warned that the Kremlin might turn to tactical or other limited nuclear weapons from its arsenal if its invasion of its southern neighbour continues to struggle facing stiff resistance from the Ukrainian forces much beyond its estimates. Lavrov also said Russia’s military operation has entered a new phase and it would continue till it reached its logical end.
Ukraine on Tuesday claimed that Russia had started a new offensive in the Donbas region overnight aiming to seize the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, create a land link between the region and Crimea, and destroy all of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said the Russian forces took control of Kreminna city in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the city. The regional governor said on Tuesday, “Kreminna is under the control of the ‘Orcs’ (Russians). They have entered the city,” Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region said. Russia-backed separatist forces are trying to storm the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol, separatist spokesperson Eduard Basurin said on Tuesday.
Russia also called on the Ukrainian forces to “immediately” lay down arms and issued a new ultimatum for the defenders of the besieged port city of Mariupol to give up their resistance. The Russian defence ministry’s warning came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced late on Monday the start of a new offensive by Moscow, focused on the east of the former Soviet state.
“We once again call on the Kyiv authorities to show reason and give the corresponding orders to fighters to cease their senseless resistance,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement. “But, understanding that they will not get such instructions and orders from the Kyiv authorities, we call on (the fighters) to voluntarily take this decision and to lay down their arms.”
The statement made no direct mention of a new ground offensive in eastern Ukraine. But it warned that Moscow had “real-time proof about terrible new crimes being prepared by the Kyiv regime.” The defence ministry added that Ukrainian fighters resisting the advancing Russian forces in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol were in a “catastrophic situation.”
“The Russian armed forces once again offer the nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries a chance to stop all military activity and to lay down their arms, starting at noon,” it said. “Everyone who lays down their arms will be guaranteed survival,” the defence ministry reiterated. Moscow said Tuesday that Russian forces had opened a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down their arms to leave the embattled city of Mariupol.
To that end, Russian forces and troops of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic “halted any military activity” around the Azovstal steelworks plant, Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defence Control Centre, said in a statement.
The ministry said the decision was made taking into account the “catastrophic situation” at the plant and “purely humanitarian principles.” Humanitarian convoys have been deployed in “three directions” that include buses, cars and ambulances to transport and treat people. Temporary accommodation and first aid facilities have also been set up, the ministry said. Mariupol offers a land bridge between Moscow-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine and the Kremlin-annexed peninsula of Crimea.
Russia also bombarded the relative safe haven of Lviv and a multitude of other targets across Ukraine in what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country’s defences. Some of the heaviest fighting of the Russian military campaign has focused around the strategic Sea of Azov port city.
Russian missile and artillery forces struck 1,260 targets in Ukraine overnight, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. Russian anti-aircraft forces downed a Ukrainian MiG-29 jet in the Donetsk region, the ministry claimed.
Russia said on Tuesday it was expelling 36 diplomats from two European countries in retaliation for similar measures taken against Moscow’s foreign envoys over the Kremlin’s military operation in Ukraine. The Russian foreign ministry said it had declared 21 diplomats from Belgium and 15 from the Netherlands “persona non grata,” giving them two weeks to leave. Moscow also summoned Luxembourg’s envoy, warning him that Russia may decide to take reciprocal measures for the tiny European state’s expulsion of Moscow’s ambassador.
Russia’s communications regulator has restricted access to the website of New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW). The move was related to the publication by HRW of what Roskomnadzor, the watchdog, deemed was false information about the behaviour of Russia’s military in Ukraine, media reports said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has not tried to get in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. “No one has been in touch, neither through the Permanent Mission of Russia to the U.N., nor directly with the Foreign Ministry,” Zakharova said.