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Top Ukrainian official says risks of nuclear conflict not high — newspaper

"The chances of a nuclear conflict are not high, but they do exist," Mikhail Podolyak stressed

ROME, September 30. /TASS/. Advisor to the Ukrainian Presidential Office Mikhail Podolyak said there was a small chance of tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict.

"The chances of a nuclear conflict are not high, but they do exist. And if the world, I mean the civilian part of the world, allows for the complete collapse of international nuclear security, we will have catastrophic consequences not only for Ukraine," he said in an interview with La Repubblica on Friday.

"The nuclear non-proliferation treaty would become waste paper and the arms race would start. Is the West ready for this?" he added. He urged a global response to any potential use of nukes within the framework of the EU and NATO.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address last week that Washington was pushing Kiev towards moving military actions to Russian territory, with "nuclear blackmail" coming into play. The issue is not only about the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which risks a nuclear disaster, but also about statements made by certain high-ranking representatives of major NATO states on the possibility and acceptability of using weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear weapons, against Russia, Putin said.