Boris Bondarev, a Russian diplomat with two decades of diplomatic experience, publicly resigned from his position in Geneva due to the war launched by Russian President Putin on February 24 in Ukraine. Bondarev calls the war in Ukraine the worst crime against the Russian people and the future, but also against the whole world. In an exclusive interview for N1, Bondarev comments on whether this is the end of Putin's regime, whether he will use nuclear weapons and how this policy of Moscow can affect regions such as the Balkans.

N1: In your letter of resignation, which you probably sent publicly to the media and the world community, you said that the aggressive war launched by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but perhaps the most serious crime against of the people of Russia. You called this war against Ukraine, which started on February 24th, but does not end six or seven months later, a crime. Now, in October of this year, Vladimir Putin is sending another 200, 300 or even 500 new soldiers to fight in that war in the south and east of Ukraine. How do you see that war in any situation today?

BONDAREV: As you just quoted my statement, it is a crime against Russia's future. They said, we see this because hundreds of thousands of young Russians, young Russians are now drafted into the army and sent to fight against the Ukrainians with only one goal, just to enable one old man to stay in power for a few years. It is a pure crime against the entire nation. And that is a big, real tragedy for Russia today. That's how I see it. Russia is clearly losing the war. And I, for me, it was obvious from the very beginning. That's why I didn't believe that Putin would start a war because it was understandable that Russia doesn't have the resources, it doesn't have the capabilities, the tools, both military and economic, to fight this war, it's not even talking about winning the war because it was evident that Russia they will not fight only against Ukraine, Ukraine will not be alone. Yes, Ukraine now has a lot of allies and of course, and those allies are the most developed countries in the world. Their economic potential is many orders of magnitude higher than Russia's. So, as if it was really a suicidal move by Putin. And I think he dared to do that because he miscalculated and was misinformed of course by his system, the system he built himself. So it's like history striking back. He used systems, his lies, which he spread all over the world. And now it's hitting him back. I am not a military expert and I rely on those news and reports of the army that we can find now and I see that this military campaign, as I said, was already lost strategically, but now it is also lost tactically. So the Russian army is pulling back from the positions they held earlier, we've seen this very successful counter-offensive by the Ukrainian forces. Now we see that they are advancing in the Kherson region. So I think if they keep up this pace, I think in a few weeks they could take back a lot of the temporarily occupied parts and that will be another huge win for them and a huge defeat for Russia and Putin himself.

N1: Putin said in a recent speech that he is not bluffing when it comes to using nuclear weapons. Do you believe him that he is not bluffing or is he just someone who pretends to be dangerous, who only threatens to protect himself and to show that he is still a strong man in the Kremlin, who can threaten the whole world with nuclear weapons.

BONDAREV: When we talk about Putin and his threats or statements, whatever, we must first understand that he almost always lies. And secondly, that, as you mentioned, propaganda is now the essence of Russian politics, wherever it is, both domestically and on a broader level. Even the instructions that Russian diplomats receive from Moscow mostly relate to propaganda. It's not about diplomacy, trying to find some consensus to try to reach some agreements with other countries. It's just about imposing your own propaganda. What Putin does, he does the same. And if you watched his speech on September 3rd and when he said he mentioned Ukraine, maybe one, two minutes out of his entire 40 minute speech, almost his entire speech was devoted to the challenges that the Western world is making to the very existence of Russia and so on. Of course you can't take it seriously. Of course, all this war was designed only by Putin to give him the opportunity to stay in power, to get an even higher rating as it was since the Crimea. So it is only for his personal benefit, it is a matter of his political survival in the survival of his regime, the regime of his personal power, nothing more. He was very good and he was fine with the western world when he was making money from gas and oil and all that. All his anti-Western rhetoric is just propaganda.