An expert warns that Donald Trump and Western countries should not succumb to Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats, writes the German publication Focus.de.
Joachim Krause, director of the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel, told Ntv that “Trump's peace diplomacy has done more harm than good“.
European politicians had to constantly convince the US president “not to make some dirty deal with Vladimir Putin“.
“Putin's troops have been trying to achieve victory in Pokrovsk for two years. He lost 120,000 people in the process, trying to take over a city that had a population of 60,000 before the war. That's not what a successful military leader looks like," Krause said.
According to him, Putin is once again making nuclear threats as a bluff to get Western countries to accept Moscow's ultimatums. "The threats are quite strange. If Putin uses these weapons against the United States, Russia will be crushed. I don't believe he intends to do that."
Meanwhile, AFP reports that Pokrovsk is on the verge of encirclement. Russian troops captured 461 square kilometers in October. This is slightly more than in September, when the Russian army captured 447 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. The Russian offensive is estimated to have been most intense in Donetsk Oblast, where 169 square kilometers have been captured – an average of just over five square kilometers per day. Moscow’s forces have made particularly significant territorial gains around the strategically important town of Pokrovsk.
Military observers suspect that the agglomeration around Pokrovsk could soon be encircled and eventually fall under Russian control. On Saturday, the Ukrainian army announced that a complex operation involving special forces was underway to drive out Russian soldiers who had advanced into Pokrovsk.