Afrasianet - “An integral part of our lands.” With these words, Russia reaffirmed the importance of the Crimean peninsula for it. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, on Monday, that he could not imagine the conditions under which Crimea could be returned, stressing that it is an integral part of Russia.

This came during Peskov's press briefing in response to a reporter's question about whether the Kremlin can imagine any conditions under which Crimea can be returned to Ukraine.

The senior Russian official stressed that Crimea is an integral part of Russia, and he cannot imagine that. And the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council announced that his country would not negotiate

if Crimea was targeted, and threatened to launch a retaliatory strike using all weapons, including "nuclear", and in proportion to the threats.

In detail, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that his country did not set restrictions for itself when responding to any attacks against its territory from Kiev, indicating that "there will be a willingness to use all kinds of weapons to respond to that." Medvedev added, during press statements: "

Our response can be anything .. and the Russian president confirmed that. We do not set ourselves any restrictions, and depending on the nature of the threats, we are ready to use all kinds of weapons."

Medvedev stressed that if Ukraine launched any attack on Crimea, "there will be counterattacks, and the rest of the Ukrainian lands that are still under Kiev's control will turn to ashes."

In a related context, the adviser to the President of the Russian Republic of Crimea for media policy, Oleg Kryuchkov, described the threat of the Kiev authorities to launch a missile attack on the peninsula as "barking from under the sofa."

Earlier, Mikhail Podolyak, advisor to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that after agreeing with the West on the supply of tanks, Kiev is negotiating the supply of long-range missiles and aircraft to launch strikes in Crimea.

This is not the first time that a nuclear response has been threatened by statements from Kiev or the West.

The head of the Social Council in Crimea, Alexander Furmanchuk, said that a nuclear war would break out "immediately" if any attempts were made to return Crimea to Ukrainian control. In an interview with "Novosti" agency,

Furmanchuk warned that "any attempt to seize Crimea and return it to Ukraine will immediately escalate into a global nuclear conflict, and Russia will not forgive that."

Furmanchuk's comments came in response to what former CIA director David Petraeus said about the possibility of restoring a peninsula annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014.

These developments came after US President Joe Biden announced earlier that the United States would leave Ukraine to decide how to end the conflict with Russia. When asked about the prospects for the return of Crimea to Ukraine, he admitted that it would not be possible to return it immediately.

He continued, "I can imagine the circumstances under which this would precede a transitional period, not immediately." However, these statements did not go unnoticed, as the Kremlin considered the United States a "major instigator" of fueling international tension, for condoning the attacks on Crimea.

He pointed out that the statements issued by them on the peninsula highlight the depth of the dispute between the two countries.

The Kremlin's statements also came in response to comments made by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, in which she said that the United States believes that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, should be disarmed, and that Washington supports Ukrainian attacks on military targets there.

Donetsk and Luhansk entry into the Russian geography? A full year has passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his country's recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, before resorting to holding a series of referendums at the end of September 2022 that included - in addition to the two regions - the provinces of Zaporizhia and Kherson, and ended with the majority of participants voting to join Russia.

The presidential decree on recognition at the time was keen to indicate that the decision was taken "in accordance with generally recognized principles and standards of international law, with recognition and affirmation of the principle of equality and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, taking into account the will of peoples in the referendum."

In any case, after Russia officially approved the annexation of the four regions, the number of its regions would have increased to 89, and its population would have increased by about 6.2 million people, to become more than 152 million.

And taking into account the Crimean peninsula, Russia will have taken control of 125,000 square kilometers, or about 20% of the territory that Kiev considers Ukrainian, and is located so far outside Russia's internationally recognized borders.

Despite the presence of the hit-and-run factor, albeit in a relative and limited way, in the military confrontations between the Russian and Ukrainian forces, Russia has so far managed to extend its control over about 98% of the territory of the Luhansk region, and 62% of Donetsk, according to data from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The Russian expert considers that one of the reasons why a large part of those who participated in the referendum voted in favor of joining Russia is that its pro-Ukrainian residents left the four regions a long time ago, and those who stayed there are mostly pro-Russian or neutral.

In another dimension, Konkov explains that "Kiev's pursuit of Atlantic politics" prompted Moscow to recover these regions, and to provide a legal way out for holding referendums in them, something that was absent in Kiev's calculations, which ruled out a "confrontational" Russian move of this kind and size.

In conclusion, the West's delusions and incitement against Russia may drive Kiev to foolishness, which may lead to Russian reactions that do not know where it can reach.

According to the statements of many Russian officials, Crimea, as well as Lugantsk and Donetsk, are an integral part of Russia.