The great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has warned Vladimir Putin could resort to nukes in the war with Ukraine.
Nina Khrushcheva added she believes Russia ’s president is prepared to do whatever it takes to claim victory.
Her great-grandad stepped back from the brink when the Soviets and the US seemed on the verge of using nuclear weapons against each other during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
But Ms Khrushcheva fears the circumstances are different now.
The professor of international affairs said: “I think Putin plans to win at any cost. If he needs to declare victory and he may need to use tactical nuclear weapons – I’m not predicting that – that could be one of the options the Russians may be prepared to use.”
Tactical nuclear weapons are less powerful than the longer-range missiles that resulted in the crisis in 1962 when Khrushchev led the Soviet Union.
But Ms Khrushcheva – a Russia scholar at the New School university in New York and a long-time critic of Putin – fears Moscow could use them to devastating effect in Ukraine.
She said her great-grandad and the then US president John F Kennedy resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis within days because they were “freaked out” by the prospect of mutual annihilation.
Ms Khrushcheva, who was five when Khrushchev died in 1971, said previously: “Now look at it today. Putin is not freaked out. In fact, he has said he has opened the nuclear arsenal.”
In his daily video update, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky also warned about Russia’s nukes.
He urged nations to build air raid shelters and to stock up on anti-radiation medicine. Mr Zelensky added: “We shouldn’t wait for the moment Russia decides to use nuclear weapons – we must prepare for that.”
He said in another interview that if Russia over-runs the Donbas region to the east, Putin may again try to seize Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
Mr Zelensky said: “I don’t trust the Russian military and Russian leadership. That is why we understand that the fact we fought them off and they were running away from Kyiv, from the north, from Chernihiv, it doesn’t mean if they are able to capture Donbas they won’t come further towards Kyiv.”
There remained confusion last night over a deadline in the besieged seaport of Mariupol. Russia had told the remaining Ukrainian troops in the city to surrender or they could be killed.
With communications difficult in the Black Sea port it was impossible to confirm what the situation was there.
An estimated 100,000 people remained in Mariupol and its immediate surroundings, which are reported to be largely under Russian control.
Mr Zelensky called the situation there “inhuman”, adding it remained “as severe as possible.” He said: “Russia is deliberately trying to destroy everyone in Mariupol.”
Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said on social media that despite Russia’s “surrender corridor” for the remaining troops in the city, “our defenders continue to hold the defence”.
He added the hostilities from Russia have not been limited to the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers are stationed. He said: “During the fighting, the occupiers shelled private residential houses with heavy artillery again.”
Russia targeted other military installations in Ukraine overnight including a missile factory on Kyiv’s outskirts.
Moscow has confirmed another shattering blow to morale with the death of the deputy commander of the 8th army, Vladimir Petrovich Frolov.
St Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov said the general had “died a heroic death in battle with Ukrainian nationalists... [and he] sacrificed his life so children... in the Donbas would no longer hear bomb explosions”.
Other Russian generals have also been killed during the war.
It is unusual for such high ranking officers to get so close to the battlefield.
Western sources think they have done so to take control of operations which have stalled in many areas.
The death comes following the blow of Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, sinking after being damaged by an explosion.
It is claimed new footage shows the head of Russia’s navy, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, meeting surviving crew members in Sevastopol in Crimea.
