DOHA: Russia’s "bragging" about its nuclear weapons is fuelling a dangerous arms race, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Doha Forum on Saturday.
Zelensky also called on Qatar, which organises the annual meeting of international political and business leaders, to increase production of natural gas to counter Russian efforts to use energy as a weapon.
"They are bragging that they can destroy with nuclear weapons not only a certain country but the entire planet," Zelensky said in a live video message to the forum on the 31st day of the Russian military assault against his country.
When Ukraine dismantled its nuclear stockpile in the 1990s it was given "security assurances from the most powerful countries in the world", including Russia, he said in comments translated into English for the conference.
"But these assurances did not become guarantees. And in fact, one of the countries supposed to give one of the greatest security promise started to work against Ukraine and this is the ultimate manifestation of injustice," Zelensky added.
Zelensky also called on Qatar, one of the world’s top three producers of natural gas, to increase production because of the conflict.
"The future of Europe rests with your efforts," he told the audience that included the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
"It depends on your output. I ask you to increase output of energy to ensure that everyone in Russia understands that no country can use energy as a weapon."
European nations have vowed to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas and have already turned to Qatar for alternative supplies.
Germany has committed to build two huge terminals to receive liquefied gas from Qatar, the Gulf state said last week after a visit by German ministers.The Ukraine conflict has unleashed a "Third World War" over misinformation, an official from the beleaguered country said on Saturday, while experts warned of the difficulty in convincing Russians what their army is doing.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has also forced a profound change in the way big tech companies are handling information, experts told the Doha Forum at which Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova put Ukraine’s case.
Russia has put huge resources into getting across its message in the media and on social media platforms that its invasion of Ukraine is a "special operation", while President Vladimir Putin has said it intends to "denazify Ukraine". "I believe we are entering a Third World War, not a conventional conflict but an information war," said Dzhaparova, a former journalist.
"It is like radiation -- you don’t feel it, you don’t touch it, but it affects you."
Dzhaparova said Russia’s "narrativization" of the war had been one of the key elements that had made Ukrainians more determined to resist.
She said it was a bigger problem to convince Russians and other countries because of the effectiveness of the Russian campaign which has increased since its seizure of Crimea eight years ago.
As well as political leaders, the Kremlin has used social media, sports people and popular musicians to get its message across, she said.
"Russia has been very inventive in this field," according to the minister who said other countries were struggling to deal with it as "people don’t know who to trust."
"The best weapon is the truth," she said. "But there are millions of Russians who just do not want to believe. When you show them the facts it just does not work."
Big tech companies are now giving greater priority to foreign policy experts to counter misinformation in other countries, taking down more content and are reducing the influence of algorithms in managing content, according to Elizabeth Joanna Linder, a former Facebook executive now running her own consultancy.
"But more needs to be done," she added.
Todd Helmus, a behaviourial scientist at the RAND Corporation, told the forum Russia’s justification for the invasion was not widely accepted internationally at the start but is now gaining traction with the "far right" in the United States and Europe.
"The American far right is echoing the Russian message and the Kremlin is echoing the American far right," Helmus said, warning governments needed to act.
"We need to find ways to push information into the Russian ecosphere," he told the forum. Helmus praised the role of international media and Ukrainian influencers who have produced powerful images from the conflict, now into its second month.
At least five people were wounded Saturday in strikes that targeted a fuel storage facility near Lviv, officials said, in a rare attack on the west Ukraine city one month into Russia’s invasion.
"There were two missile strikes within Lviv," the regional governor Maksym Kozytsky said on social media, adding that, "according to preliminary data, five people were injured".
The city’s mayor Andriy Sadovy said in a later post that "an industrial facility where fuel is stored caught fire" as a result of the attack.
"No residential buildings were damaged. All relevant departments are working on site," he wrote, urging residents to remain indoors until air sirens had halted.
Plumes of thick smoke could be seen in the city centre and Lviv residents were standing outside their homes to observe the dark clouds billowing in the wind.