Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency should go to Ukraine “as soon as possible,” accusing Kyiv of erasing evidence of a “dirty bomb” preparation that Russia knows where.
“You want the IAEA to come. We, however, as quickly and as widely as possible, because we know that the authorities in Kyiv are doing everything possible to hide the consequences of these preparations,” he told the Valdai Dialogue Forum in Moscow. . “They are working on it,” he added.
Asked about Russia’s accusations of preparing a “dirty bomb” by Kyiv, he added: “We even roughly know where this is happening (in Ukraine).”
“We never talked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons. We only made hints in response to the statements of other countries,” he said.
Putin also sought to downplay his previous statements about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, explaining that he was only responding to threats from opponents.
He considered that Ukraine and Westerners are saying that Moscow is playing the card of nuclear escalation in order to “influence neutral countries and tell them: look at Russia! Don’t cooperate with her!”
