Vladimir Putin's nuke threat sets world on edge

Kyiv/Moscow: Ukraine on Sunday agreed to hold talks with Russia on the Belarus border, reports said quoting the presidency, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his defence chiefs to put the country's nuclear "deterrence forces" on high alert.

"I order the Defence Minister and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to put the deterrence forces of the Russian army into a special mode of combat service," the Russian President said, accusing the West of taking "unfriendly" steps against his country. Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only the alleged statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.

Almost around the same time, Ukraine announced it was ready to hold talks with Russia at its border with Belarus - near the Chernobyl exclusion zone - after a phone call between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Ukraine had earlier turned down Moscow's offer of a meeting in Belarus, which has allowed Russian troops passage to attack Ukraine. Ukraine had proposed Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul and Baku as possible alternative locations for any talks.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces had secured full control of its second city Kharkiv on Sunday following street fighting with Russian troops, the local governor said. "Kharkiv is fully under our control," the head of the regional administration, Oleg Sinegubov, said on Telegram, adding that the army was expelling Russian forces during a "clean-up" operation. Ukraine took Russia to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Day 4 of the invasion, as Russian forces continued to hit Ukrainian cities with artillery and cruise missiles. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield denounced the move as a "totally unacceptable" escalation, telling "Face the Nation" on Sunday morning that the US will "continue here at the United Nations and around the world to use every possible lever we have at our disposal to expose his actions."

"President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable, and we have to continue to condemn his actions in the strongest possible way," Thomas-Greenfield said.