Live: Ukraine seeks UN meeting to stop Russia’s ‘nuclear blackmail’ in Belarus

Issued on: 27/03/2023 – 09:23

9:08am: NATO party to Ukraine war, says top Russian security chief

The secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that NATO countries are a party to the conflict in Ukraine, according to excerpts from an interview with Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta cited Patrushev as saying: “In fact, NATO countries are a party to the conflict. They made Ukraine one big military camp. They send weapons and ammunition to the Ukrainian troops, provide them with intelligence.”

Patrushev, a former chief of the FSB internal security service, is widely seen as one of the most hawkish members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

6:45am: Ukraine wants ‘effective’ UN action to counter Russian ‘nuclear blackmail’

Kyiv said on Sunday it was seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nation’s Security Council to counter Russia’s “nuclear blackmail” after President Vladimir Putin announced his country would station tactical nuclear arms in Belarus.

Putin said the deployment was similar to moves from the United States, which stores such weapons in bases across Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, an analogy western allies called “misleading”.

“Ukraine expects effective actions to counteract the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail from the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said. 

“We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be immediately convened for this purpose,” it added.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)