President Putin has ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on to high alert, greatly escalating tensions even as President Zelensky of Ukraine agreed to peace talks.
In a televised meeting with his defence minister and chief of staff, Putin placed the nuclear deterrent forces into a “special regime of combat duty”, citing Nato’s “aggressive statements” about his invasion of Ukraine.
Fierce fighting was entering a fifth day as Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, lifted a weekend curfew and defence forces searched for infiltrators who are believed to have entered the city to assassinate Zelensky and prepare for a Russian ground force. The Times has learnt that those special units included mercenaries from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group who have been instructed to use the cover of peace negotiations to “decapitate” the government.
As further air raid sirens and explosions were heard in key cities, Zelenksy said this morning that the next 24 hours would be “crucial” for the defence of his country.
President Lukashenko of Belarus, an ally of President Putin, said that sanctions imposed by the West could lead to a global war.
“Russia is being pushed towards a Third World War. We should be very reserved and steer clear of it. Because nuclear war is the end of everything,” he said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Defence sources warned that the nuclear alert was intended as a direct threat to Nato countries after Britain, Germany and others announced more military aid for Ukraine alongside further financial sanctions, including on Putin himself. The order means Russia’s nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world, should be prepared to fire under the direction of the president. It was condemned as “unacceptable” by the United States and Nato.
The United Nations will also hold an emergency special session later today involving all 193 member countries to discuss Russia’s invasion.
It came as:
• Britain said it would take further measures against the Russian central bank in response to the invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian rouble crashed to a historic low against the dollar. Analysts predicted a run on Russian banks after the currency plunged more than 30 per cent as markets opened.
• Fierce street fighting was seen in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, where defenders with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns repelled a Russian assault led by armoured vehicles.
• Putin’s forces targeted Ukraine’s gas and oil facilities in strikes described as “brutal” by Zelensky, whose government accused Russia of war crimes for hitting hospitals, schools and homes.
• BP, the British oil company, said that it would sell its stake in Rosneft, the Kremlin’s oil group, in which it is the second-biggest shareholder after the Russian state. The move will cost up to $25 billion but the company said that it was the “right thing to do”.
• Norway said that its $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, would divest its Russian assets.
• Germany announced sharp rises in defence spending as the European Union approved additional financial sanctions and shipments of military aid, including removing Russian banks from the international payments system known as Swift.
• Ukraine claimed to have killed 3,500 Russian soldiers in four days of fighting, which has also left more than 352 civilians dead, including 14 children. The United Nations estimated that nearly 370,000 refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly, had fled.
According to Russian nuclear doctrine, updated in 2020, Moscow can carry out a first strike if it has “reliable information” about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting its territory, weapons that Ukraine does not possess.
Putin told officials: “Western countries are taking not only unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, I mean here illegitimate sanctions that everyone knows about. But the top officials of leading Nato countries are also allowing aggressive statements against our country. Therefore, I order the minister of defence and the chief of the general staff to transfer the deterrent forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty.”
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, suggested that Putin was driven by frustration over his failure to take Kyiv swiftly, owing to poor planning and logistical failure alongside tougher than expected resistance.
He said that Putin “went completely mad in his obsession to destroy Ukraine, to deprive us of the right to exist”. He added: “If the order of President Putin to put on high alert his nuclear weapons is a direct threat to use these nuclear weapons against Ukraine, then I have a very simple message. It will be a catastrophe for the world, but it will not break us down.”
Moscow and Kyiv played cat and mouse with each other over peace talks. Zelensky turned down a proposal from President Lukashenko of Belarus, from whose territory Russian forces are attacking Kyiv, for talks in Minsk but said that he would consider a more neutral city. After reports that Belarusian special forces were joining the invasion, Zelensky spoke to Lukashenko and agreed to talks with a Russian delegation in exchange for Belarus stopping its territory being used as a launchpad for the invasion.
“I do not want missiles, planes, helicopters to fly to Ukraine from Belarus. I do not want troops to go to Ukraine from Belarus. And he assured me of that,” Zelensky said of Lukashenko. He agreed to send a delegation to meet the Russians on the Belarusian border, saying that it was his duty to do so.
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“As always, I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting,” he said. “But let them try so that no citizen of Ukraine would have any doubt that I, as president, did not try to stop the war, when there was a small chance.”
In a nod to the Russian assassination operation against the top leadership, he added: “While our guys are there, the president is here, the head of the office is here, the prime minister is here, the army is here, the commander-in-chief is here, we will all defend our state and our borders.”
Lukashenko delivered a grim prediction of where hostilities were heading. “I wouldn’t call it a war even now, it’s a conflict,” he told reporters. “And in a day or two there will be a war, and in three days there will be a meat grinder.”
Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, confirmed that a Ukrainian delegation would “meet on the border” with Belarus. “We go there to listen to what Russia wants to say,” he said, but also “to say what we think of Russia’s war”.
Kuleba said the discussions did not signal a capitulation by Kyiv’s government. “We will not surrender. We will not capitulate. We will not give up a single inch of our territory.”
Last night the Ukrainian interior ministry said that Iskander missiles had been launched at its territory from Belarus for the first time.
Russia has 4,447 nuclear warheads, 1,588 of which are deployed on ballistic missiles and at heavy bomber bases, compared with the US’s 3,708 warheads, of which 1,644 are strategically deployed, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Similar to the US Defcon levels of nuclear preparedness, Russia has a number of readiness levels: constant, elevated, military danger and full.
The “elevated” level, which is what Putin has raised it to, tells commanders that he wants the option available to him and they need to be ready to fire.
Dr Jack Watling, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said that the levels referenced who was delegated responsibility for firing and the notice at which the missiles were ready to fire. “Military danger” suggests Russia believes it could come under nuclear attack and delegates responsibility to fire in response, he said. “Full” points to a nuclear war.
Yesterday, gunfire and explosions were heard in the streets of Kharkiv after Russian forces appeared to have pierced through Ukrainian lines, but the regional governor insisted that Ukrainian forces retained full control over the northeastern city.
Russian forces have attacked Ukrainian oil and gas facilities, causing huge explosions around the country. But President Putin’s troops have so far failed to enter Kyiv as Ukrainians defended the capital city, despite what Zelenksy described as a “brutal” night of fighting. Nearly 400,000 people have fled the country in four days.
As the European Union prepared to approve additional sanctions against Russia and pledged shipments of military aid in support of Ukraine, Germany has announced sharp hikes in defence spending.
Speaking at an emergency session of the German parliament, Olaf Scholz said the world had “entered a new era” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that “there could be no other answer to Putin’s aggression” than overturning decades of tight controls on German military policy to offer assistance to Ukraine.