Kiev: The head of NATO expressed concern that fighting in Ukraine could spiral out of control and lead to a war between Russia and NATO, according to an interview made public on Friday.
In comments to Norwegian broadcaster NRK, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that if things go wrong, they "could go badly wrong."
"The conflict in Ukraine is terrible. It's also a conflict between NATO and Russia that according to him has the potential to escalate into a full-scale war. To prevent that, "we work on that every day."
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Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, said in the interview that "it is vital to prevent the conflict" involving more countries in Europe and becoming an outright war in Europe. He added, "There is no doubt that an all-out war is likely."
The Kremlin has accused NATO allies of being unwittingly involved in the conflict, training and passing military intelligence to Ukraine so it can attack Russian forces.
President Vladimir Putin said in comments that reflect growing hostility between Russia and the West that Moscow may consider using the US concept of a preemptive strike.
Speaking of the disarmament strike, he suggested that it might be worthwhile to adopt security ideas developed by his American counterparts.
The Kremlin expressed concern about US efforts to build a so-called immediate global strike capability, which aims to hit an adversary's strategic targets anywhere in the world with precision-guided conventional weapons within an hour, long before the conflict in Ukraine.
Putin said that such an attack could destroy the command center.
He claimed that Russia has hypersonic weapons that the US has not deployed and Moscow's precision-guided cruise missiles comparable to those of the U.S. Performs better than weapons. "We're just thinking about it, he didn't shy away from talking about it openly over the years," he said.
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Putin also expressed dismay at former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent remark that Ukraine had time to prepare for a 2022 war, thanks to a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine negotiated by France and Germany. Is.
It turned out that other participants in the process were deceiving us, contrary to what they believed. "It turned out that they wanted to shut down Ukraine and prepare for war."
Merkel's comments proved, according to Putin, that Russia had good reason to launch what it called a "special military operation" in Ukraine. "Maybe we should have started it sooner," he said. He said his comments further damaged Russia's trust in the West and complicated any potential peace talks.
"We will eventually need to negotiate a deal," he said. "However, there is an issue of trust after such statements. Trust is almost nonexistent. We are ready for an agreement, as I have repeatedly said, but it makes us consider who we are dealing with." have been
In separate remarks made via video link to the defense and security chiefs of several former Soviet countries, Putin once again accused the West of using Ukraine as a weapon against his country.
"The West shamelessly exploited and pumped out its resources for many years, encouraged genocide and terror in the Donbass, and in essence turned the country into a colony," he said. By continuing to send mercenaries, arming Ukraine with arms and ammunition, and driving it to suicide, it is now using the people of Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia.
The Ukrainians claim that they are engaged in a war of independence against an invading aggressor.
In a phone conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Zelensky "agreed on the importance of stopping Russia's insincere calls for a ceasefire", according to Sunak's office. "The prime minister said the Kremlin had to withdraw its forces before an agreement could be considered."
On Friday, fierce fighting continued in eastern and southern Ukraine, mostly in areas Russia illegally annexed in September. Within the past 24 hours, five civilians have been killed and 13 additional civilians wounded by Russian shelling, according to Ukraine's presidential office.
The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, claimed that despite significant casualties, the Russians continued to launch daily attacks on Bakhmut.
"You could describe those attacks as cannon fodder," Kirilenko said in televised commentary. They are unable to advance as they primarily use infantry and less armour.
The regional governor of neighboring Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Serhiy Haidai, reported that Ukrainian forces were advancing on Kremina and Svyatov with their counteroffensive.
By the end of the year, he expressed hope that Ukraine will retake Kreminna, and by the end of the winter, it will retake other parts of the region that Russia has been occupying since the war started.
Eight civilians were injured by Russian shelling in the south, according to Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanyshevych, and a children's hospital and a morgue were damaged in Kherson, which Ukraine retook last month.
Russian forces shelled Nikopol and Chervonohryhorivka, which are located across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region.
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Russian shelling, according to Zaporizhzhia Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, damaged homes and power lines. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported that three civilians were hurt by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, and one of them later perished.