United Nations, United States, Sept 21 (AFP\/APP): US President Joe Biden tore into Vladimir Putin at the United Nations on Wednesday, hours after the Russian leader dramatically escalated his seven-month war in Ukraine by calling up 300,000 military reservists.<\/p>\n
Biden accused Putin of “shamelessly” violating the UN Charter and castigated him over a threat to use nuclear weapons, warning that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”<\/p>\n
“Just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe,” Biden said in his address to the annual UN General Assembly, lambasting Putin’s “irresponsible” stance.<\/p>\n
Russian forces have attacked Ukrainian schools, railway stations and hospitals, the US president said, to pursue a war aimed at “extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state.”<\/p>\n
Putin’s mobilization order came as 10 prisoners of war — including two from the United States and five from Britain — were freed as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The prisoners, who also hail from Sweden, Morocco and Croatia, were transferred to Saudi Arabia from Russia, Riyadh said, without specifying when they would be returned home.<\/p>\n
But the diplomatic breakthrough did little to lower the temperature as Western leaders voiced outrage at Putin’s latest moves — and Moscow’s plan to stage annexation referendums this week in Russian-held regions of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Donetsk and Lugansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south are holding votes over five days beginning Friday — ramping up the stakes in the conflict by allowing Moscow to accuse Ukraine of attacking supposedly Russian territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United Nations, United States, Sept 21 (AFP\/APP): US President Joe Biden tore into Vladimir Putin at the United Nations on Wednesday, hours after the Russian leader dramatically escalated his seven-month war in Ukraine by calling up 300,000 military reservists. Biden accused Putin of “shamelessly” violating […]<\/p>\n
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