Ambassador: Russia is Ready to Respond to Any Attack, Not Going to Use Nuclear Weapons First

Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/MO)

The Russian ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, said in Belgrade, on March 2, that his country was fully prepared to respond to any attack, but that it was not going to use nuclear weapons first.

“Interpretations that Russia was preparing a nuclear war are untrue,” the ambassador said during an interview with the Prva TV, underlining that the chief task for the Russian army was that civilians and civilian objects were not targeted during the war in Ukraine. When asked to explain video footage showing that Russian grenades struck civilian targets in Ukraine, the Russian diplomat said that false reports were commonplace, and that he preferred to rely on trustworthy reports by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Botsan-Kharchenko repeated that the purpose of the attack was not the occupation of Ukraine, but rather its “denazification and demilitarization.” The diplomat underlined that the war could have been prevented, as for years Russia had appealed that the NATO should not continue to spread to the East. Moscow is now finishing a war going on for eight years, he explained.

“We were forced to use the last and most difficult option, ending the war in Ukraine and putting an end to the actions of the West outside the international law, or any rules for that matter. They have lost control. We haven’t trespassed, we have acted in our own state,” Botsan-Kharchenko said in the televised interview.