The Russian ambassador in London, Andrei Kelin, does not expect his country to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. According to the rules of the Russian military, this is only provided if Russia’s existence is threatened, Kelin said in a BBC interview broadcast on Sunday.

“It has nothing to do with the current operation,” says Kelin. When asked whether he believed President Vladimir Putin would be prepared to launch a nuclear attack on Britain if the war escalated, the ambassador said no. This and similar scenarios were publicly discussed on Russian state television a few weeks ago.

Faced with evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the Russian ambassador repeatedly denied Moscow’s responsibility. “Nothing is happening, no bodies on the street,” Kelin said of reports of atrocities in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, where hundreds of bodies were found after the Russians left in April.

“We think it’s an invention. It’s being used to disrupt negotiations,” Kelin said. When asked, he stated that he was last in Ukraine a few years ago – during the Maidan revolution.