Ukrainians claim to retake ground in war

No one in Russia thinking about using nuclear weapons: Kremlin

FE Team | Published: March 29, 2022 21:11:01

LVIV, Mar 29 (AP/ TASS): Ukrainian forces claimed to have retaken a Kyiv suburb and an eastern town from the Russians in what is becoming a back-and-forth stalemate on the ground, while negotiators began assembling for another round of talks Tuesday aimed at stopping the fighting.
Ahead of the talks, to be held in Istanbul, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in the country's east.
The mayor of Irpin, a northwestern Kyiv suburb that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting near the capital, said Monday that the city has been "liberated" from Russian troops.
Zelenskyy warned that Russian forces are trying to regroup after losing the area.
"We still have to fight, we have to endure," the president said late Monday in his nighttime video address to the nation. "We can't express our emotions now. We can't raise expectations, simply so that we don't burn out."
Another report adds: No one in Russia is considering the idea of using nuclear weapons, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told PBS.
The interviewer asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had suggested in his earlier statement that he would use nuclear weapons if a third party got involved in the conflict in Ukraine and Peskov said 'no.' "I don't think so. But he was quite bold in saying 'do not interfere, if you do, we have all the possibilities to prevent that and to punish all those who are going to interfere," he specified.
When asked if he could rule out the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict on behalf of Russia, the Kremlin spokesman said: "No one is thinking about using... even about the idea of using nuclear weapons.".
US President Joe Biden's recent remark about Russian leader Vladimir Putin is quite alarming, Peskov told.
"It's quite alarming. First of all, it's a personal insult and one can hardly imagine a place for a personal insult in the rhetoric of a political leader and especially of the political leader of the greatest country in the world, the United States. So we are very sorry about that," he pointed out.
"His statement about whether Putin should not or should be in power in Russia is of course unacceptable. It's not for the United States' president to decide who is going to be and who is the president of Russia, it is the people of Russia who decide it during elections," Peskov added.