President Rodrigo Duterte said he found Russian President Vladimir Putin to be “suicidal” hours after Russia attacked Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
“You watch out for Putin, he is suicidal. If he loses face, he will run amuck,” Duterte said in his speech during the inauguration of Narvacan Farmers Market in Ilocos Sur on Friday.
An explosion at Zaporizhzhia would have equaled “six Chernobyls,” Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said, referring to the plant in Ukraine that was the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.
The attack at the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia, which can power enough energy for four million homes, killed three Ukrainian soldiers, according to Kyiv’s nuclear operator Energoatom, and was slammed in Washington, London, and other Western capitals as utterly irresponsible.
Duterte said the Philippines must stay “neutral” even as he acknowledged that the country must eventually make a stand in the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
“I just pray to God that this will not really go out of control. If this is not controlled, the whole world is in danger,” he said.
“Once they start to push the button of nuclear warheads or nuclear bomb, well, as one commentator said, it will melt the world. They have 1,000 nuclear warheads—the one in Hiroshima, that was a primitive bomb, the one in Nagasaki too that flattened to the ground. How much more if they release 1,000?” Duterte added.
On Wednesday, the Philippines called for an immediate cessation of violence in Ukraine under Russia’s invasion and called on the parties involved to forge a peace accord.
The country voted in the affirmative during a United Nations General Assembly meeting that adopted a non-binding resolution demanding Russia to immediately leave Ukraine.
In voting for the adoption of the UN resolution, the Philippines cited the principle of sovereignty and the “sovereign equality of States, (which) is enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”
Manila called for the protection of civilians and public infrastructures but asserted the need for a ceasefire for both countries.
“We especially condemn the use of separatism and secession as a weapon of diplomacy for inviting and inflicting terrible cruelties and indiscriminate killings far in excess of that of any other kind of conflict. We saw this in the Balkans and in Africa,” the Philippines said.
Meanwhile, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs said that 116 land-based Filipinos were still in Ukraine, and some 200 Pinoy seafarers were stranded in the Black Sea.
Foreign Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola said 27 Filipinos, including 21 seafarers, had moved to Moldova and had crossed to Bucharest in Romania for a flight to the Philippines.
Fifteen Filipinos are still in Hungary, nine in Austria, and four in Romania.
Arriolasaid 19 Filipinos had been repatriated to the Philippines, but others opted to stay with their Ukrainian spouses despite the conflict.
Citing information from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Arriola said around 200 Filipino seafarers were stranded in the Black Sea and nearby ports.
“Their estimate is that there are more seafarers who are stranded around 200. But they are not in the crossfire. They are really stranded in the Black Sea in Odessa, and other areas,” the DFA official added.
According to Arriola, ships were being cautious about sailing because two cargo ships were already hit by explosions.