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Artem Priakhin/Kommersant/Sipa USA
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that a nuclear war “should never” be launched — as the head of the United Nations warned that the strongman’s Ukraine war is “one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away” from putting the world in danger of nuclear annihilation.
Putin’s comments came in a letter to participants at a UN conference to reaffirm the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that began Monday.
“We proceed from the fact that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed, and we stand for equal and indivisible security for all members of the world community,” the Russian leader said.
The remarks were a sharp departure from the Kremlin’s constant reminders of its nuclear capability during the past five months of the war in Ukraine.
As Putin invaded Ukraine in February, he warned that interference from Western nations would bring “consequences you have never seen” — widely interpreted to be a nuclear threat.