Odesa Councilman to Newsmax: Ukraine Backing Out of NATO Won't Stop Putin

Peter Obukhov, a member of the Odesa, Ukraine, City Council, warned on Newsmax that Ukraine not joining NATO would not stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading.

''Putin wants Ukraine to be part of Soviet Union,'' Obukhov said on Tuesday's ''Eric Bolling: The Balance.'' ''So he will not stop. The only way this war will be stopped, is when Putin will lose his power or life.''

On Tuesday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Putin would not rule out the nuclear option for what he and Moscow consider ''existential threat[s].''

Peskov said that Putin's reasons for invading Ukraine include ensuring it is a ''neutral country,'' to get rid of ''nationalist battalions'' and to accept that the breakaway statelets of Luhansk and Donetsk ''are already independent states.'' He added that Russia is concerned about U.S.-run ''biolabs'' in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Obukhov said that for now, Odesa has a ''very low probability'' of being surrounded. ''We have a lot of troops; a lot of armors. And I believe that we will get more even also from your country, and I thank you for that. And Odesa will not go down.''

The councilman added that Odesa has food, electricity and running water.

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