Ukraine are preparing for a “very bloody battle” in the strategic city of Kherson and will then attempt to re-take Crimea.
However Ukraine has been warned to come to “some arrangement over Crimea” to avoid a nuclear war.
Vladimir Putin’s “threats” have been increasing and there are strong fears he could detonate a tactical nuclear weapon in the Black Sea to show strength.
A security source told The Sun that the “threat has increased recently” and analysts are also warning that Putin could use a nuclear weapon in the Black Sea in a show of force to threaten NATO and Western allies in an attempt for the them to back off and stop supporting Ukraine.
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The former UK chief of the defence staff Lord Richards hinted that there could be a “properly monitored and executed referendum” which could happen over Crimea.
Lord Richards suggested that Russia could be allowed to remain in control of Crimea for a “number of years.”
It is highly unlikely that this would ever happen as the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said that he will not give up Crimea and has suggested that his forces will retake the annexed peninsula.
Lord Richards said, “There could be some arrangement over Crimea, a properly monitored and executed referendum, perhaps a sort of Hong Kong deal whereby it is allowed to remain in Russian hands for a number of years.
“The alternative is a very bloody battle, the loss of a particularly totemic part of what Russia has taken in Ukraine, which the Russians view as Russian.
“They are not alone in that, I have to say, in the West notwithstanding criticism of what they did.
“If Ukraine was to successfully take Crimea, then we get back into this issue of escalation, and rubbing Putin’s nose in it could provoke him to do something silly, such as – well everyone knows what I am going to say – the use of nuclear tactical warheads.”
President Zelensky said on 25 October, We will definitely liberate Crimea. We will return this part of our country not only to the all-Ukrainian space, but also to the all-European space.”
This week in a phone call the French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Putin and the Russian leader warned that “Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks are proof you don’t need to hit major cities to win a war.”
It has been long feared that Putin will launch a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine in an attempt to save face and win the war to protect his position as his war is failing and has lost tens of thousands of troops.
A source said that President Macron was left “distinctly alarmed” by Putin’s comment over the possible use of a nuclear weapon.
