Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov granted an interview to PBS Newshour yesterday, making a number of points. The first question was on President Joe Biden’s calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “butcher” and saying he can’t remain in power. “First of all, it is personal insult. And one can hardly imagine a place for personal insult in rhetoric of a political leader, and especially a political leader of the greatest country in the world, of the United States,” he said. “So, we’re really sorry about that. And his statement involves whether Putin should not or should be in power in Russia. Of course, it is completely unacceptable. It is not for the United States’ president to decide who is going to be and who is the president of the Russian Federation. It is the people of Russia who are deciding during the election.”
Peskov also said that there’s no conditions in Ukraine that would call for the Russian use of nuclear weapons. “Well, first of all, we have no doubt that all the objectives of our special military operation in Ukraine will be completed. We have no doubt about that,” he said. “But any outcome of the operation, of course, is not a reason for use of a nuclear weapon. We have a security concept that very clearly states that only when there is a threat for the existence of the state in our country, can we use, and we will actually use nuclear weapons to eliminate the threat to the existence of our country.”
Peskov stressed that an existential threat to the state and the special military operation in Ukraine “have nothing to do with each other.” He also reminded the interviewer that when Putin ordered the start of the operation on Feb. 24, that he included a warning to other states not to interfere in the affairs between Russia and Ukraine. “He was very strict in his warning, and he was quite tough on that,” Peskov said. “And I think that everyone understands what he meant.”
