(Bloomberg) — Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight boxing champion who’s now mayor of Kyiv, said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear arms in Ukraine were only a “big bluff.
Most Read from Bloomberg
“If Putin talks about nuclear weapon, it shows a weakness” because his “army isn’t successful in the east or south” of Ukraine, Klitschko told Bloomberg Television on Thursday.
Putin has threatened to use “all weapons systems available to us” as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine faced growing setbacks against a military deploying powerful modern arms supplied by its US and European allies.
In a Sept. 30 speech declaring the annexation of four Ukrainian territories that his troops don’t fully control, Putin said the US had set “a precedent” by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.
President Joe Biden said a week later that the US was worried Putin may resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and that confrontation could spiral into “Armageddon.” Biden said his administration was trying to find an “off-ramp” for the Russian leader.
For Ukrainians, such a threat causes little worry as many of them have already experienced a nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 and know what to do, according to Klitschko.
Kyiv residents are ready for “any situations,” he said. Even a string of missile attacks this week that killed six people and injured more than 60 haven’t caused panic, he said.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
