Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian officials have begun “preparing their society” for the possible use of nuclear weapons, but added that he doesn’t think Russia is ready to use them.

In an interview with BBC, President Zelensky denied calling for Russia to be attacked and claimed that an earlier comment of his had been mistranslated. “You have to use preventive strikes,” he said of sanctions, “not strikes.”

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has recaptured large swathes of territory in a successful counteroffensive that has forced Russian troops out of long-held positions.

In what Kyiv describes as Moscow’s response to its defeats, Russian President Vladimir Putin has incorporated four partially occupied regions of Ukraine into his country.

The annexations, widely considered illegal, have raised fears of a possible escalation in the war that began seven months ago.

President Putin and other top Russian officials have suggested that nuclear weapons, possibly smaller tactical weapons, could be used to defend those areas, though Western officials say there is no evidence Moscow is prepared to do so.

Speaking in English at the presidential office in Kyiv, President Zelensky said: “They start to prepare their society. That is very dangerous. They are not ready to do it, to use them. But they start to communicate. They don’t know if they will use them or not. I think it’s dangerous to even talk about it.”

Then, in Ukrainian, he said through a translator: “What we see is that the people of Russia in power like life, and therefore I think that the risk of using nuclear weapons is not as definitive as they say. some experts, because they understand that there is no going back after using them.”

Zelensky denied having called to do attacks against Russia during an online event Thursday and said the Ukrainian word he used had been misunderstood.

The initial comment was denounced by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as “a call to start another world war”, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it showed why Russia was right to launch its operation. in Ukraine.

“After that translation,” President Zelensky said, “they [los rusos] they made [las cosas] in their own way, as it is useful to them, and they began to retranslate it in other directions”.

The interview came hours after US President Joe Biden said the Russian threat to use nuclear weapons had brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than ever since the Cuban missile crisis during the Cold War.

Zelensky claimed that Moscow “has already taken a step” by occupying the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, which President Putin is trying to turn into Russian property.

He said that some 500 Russian soldiers are at the plant, although Ukrainian personnel continue to operate there. “The world can urgently stop the actions of the Russian occupiers,” President Zelensky said. “The world can apply the sanctions package in these cases and do everything possible to get them to leave the nuclear plant.”

Ukraine retakes 2,500 sq km in new counteroffensive

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 2,500 square kilometres (965 square miles) of territory from Russia in a counteroffensive that began late last month.

"This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometres of territory in the east of our country and 29 settlements, including six in Lugansk region," Zelensky said.

"In total, 2,434 square kilometres of our land and 96 settlements have already been liberated since the beginning of this offensive operation," he added in his daily speech shared on social media.

Ukraine has in recent days made a second significant push to reclaim territory in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, but also in the south, near Kherson, a city under Russian control.

In mid-September, Zelensky said Ukrainian forces retook 6,000 square kilometres from Russian troops in the first counteroffensive.

Russian forces said earlier on Friday they had captured ground in Donetsk in east Ukraine, their first claim of new gains since Kyiv grabbed the momentum with its lightning counteroffensive that rattled Russia's war effort.

US ammunition supplies dwindle

The United States will soon be unable to provide Ukraine with certain types of ammunition that are essential to Kyiv's battle against Russia's invasion, as supplies are being used up faster than they can be replaced.

Washington has become by far the largest supplier of arms to Ukraine since Russia launched the invasion on February 24, with more than $16.8 billion in military assistance provided since that date.

But US stockpiles of some equipment are "reaching the minimum levels needed for war plans and training," and restocking to pre-invasion levels could take years, Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a recent analysis.

Washington is "learning lessons" from the conflict about ammunition needs in a great power war, which are "far greater" than expected, a US military official acknowledged on condition of anonymity.

American defense firms were forced to drastically reduce production in the 1990s as the United States slashed defense spending following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and their number fell dramatically, from dozens to single digits.

Now, the US government must convince the industry to reopen assembly lines and relaunch production of items such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which have not been made since 2020.

Some US-provided equipment has become emblematic of the war in Ukraine, such as Javelin anti-tank weapons that were widely used by Kyiv's forces to blunt the Russian advance on the capital, and the Himars, a precision rocket system now playing a key role in counter-offensives against Moscow's troops in the east and south.

- 'No alternatives' -

But US stocks of ammunition for Himars -- which fires GPS-guided rockets known as GMLRS, with a range of more than 80 kilometers (50 miles) -- are dwindling.

"If the United States sent one-third of that inventory to Ukraine (as has been the case with Javelin and Stinger), Ukraine would receive 8,000 to 10,000 rockets. That inventory would likely last several months, but, when the inventory is exhausted, there are no alternatives," said Cancian, who previously worked on weapons procurement for the US government.

"Production is about 5,000 a year. Although the United States is working to increase that amount, and money has recently been allocated for that purpose, it will take years," he said, adding that older equipment could help fill the gap.

The United States has provided some 8,500 Javelin missiles to Kyiv, but production of a weapon that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance is only about 1,000 per year.

- 'As long as it takes' -

The US government ordered $350 million worth of the missiles in May, but it will again take several years before stockpiles are replenished.

The United States has also supplied more than 800,000 NATO standard 155 mm artillery shells to Kyiv -- three-quarters of the total amount delivered by all Western countries, according to official Pentagon statistics.

The amount of shells Washington has provided "is probably close to the limit that the United States is willing to give without risk to its own warfighting capabilities," Cancian said.

US production of these shells currently stands at 14,000 per month, but the Pentagon has announced that it aims to increase that figure to 36,000 within three years. That would still only bring annual production to 432,000 -- less than half of what has been provided to Ukraine in seven months.

And the US defense industry production is speeding up, Laura Cooper, a senior defense department official responsible for Russia and Ukraine, said Tuesday.

"The United States will continue to stand with the Ukrainian people and provide them with the security assistance they need to defend themselves for as long as it takes," she said.

With inputs from AFP.