Human rights campaigners from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in what will be viewed by many as a rebuke to Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko.
The announcement in Oslo came as US president Joe Biden warned that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was at its gravest since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, cautioning that Mr Putin is “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.”
Mr Putin has threatened to use “all the means at our disposal” to defend Russia. However, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow has not changed its position that a nuclear war must never be fought.
Meanwhile, Russia has demanded that a United Nations vote on a resolution calling on Mr Putin to reverse his recent annexation of four more regions of Ukraine should be held in secret, in the apparent hope that more nations will vote in Moscow’s favour.
