A pro-putin propagandist has declared on state TV that Russia must win its war in Ukraine or World War III will happen.
Margarita Simonyan, head of RT, suggested that a major new conflict could occur should Kyiv take back Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Samoyed said: “In their view (the West and Ukraine), Russia’s victory means for Russia to retain at least something, including Crimea.
“They believe that Ukraine should take it all. Donbas, the Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea as well, that would suit them. Other options don’t suit them. World War 3 doesn’t suit them either.”
She later added: “Either we win in the way we consider our victory, or there will be World War III, sooner or later. I don’t see any other way.”
The comments were shared on Twitter by Julia Davis, creator of the Russian Media Monitor, and have been viewed more than 267,100 times since being shared on Saturday, November 3.
After failing to take Kyiv due to fierce Ukrainian resistance, Russia seized broad swaths of southern Ukraine at the start of the invasion and captured the key Sea of Azov port of Mariupol in May after a nearly three-month siege. In September, Putin illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions even though his forces didn’t completely control them: Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east. In 2014, he had illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Speaking in a televised meeting in Russia with members of his Human Rights Council, Putin described the land gains as “a significant result for Russia,” noting that the Sea of Azov “has become Russia’s internal sea.” In one of his frequent historic references to a Russian leader he admires, he added that “Peter the Great fought to get access” to that body of water.
In response to an increasing influx of advanced Western weapons, economic, political and humanitarian aid to Kyiv and what he saw as Western leaders’ inflammatory statements, Putin has periodically hinted at his potential use of nuclear weapons. When a member of the Human Rights Council asked him Wednesday to pledge that Russia would not be the first to use such weapons, Putin demurred. He said Russia would not be able to use nuclear weapons at all if it agreed not to use them first and then came under a nuclear strike.
