|
|
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it wants to avoid a confrontation with nuclear powers as the war in Ukraine continues to drag on and Washington continues to provoke fear by talking about a potential nuclear confrontation.
Russia said in a statement that it is “firmly convinced that in the current difficult, turbulent situation, which is the consequence of irresponsible and impudent actions aimed at undermining our national security, preventing any military clash between nuclear powers is the highest priority.”
An unnamed U.S. official told the Financial Times that there have been high-level meetings between officials from Washington and Moscow that has eased some of the tensions.
“There’s a temporary feeling of reassurance,” the official said.
The statement from the ministry came after The New York Times report, citing multiple senior American officials, that senior Russian military leaders have been holding conversations about how the Kremlin would use a tactical nuclear weapon in its war against Ukraine.
TRENDPOST: U.S./NATO politicians and the mainstream media interpreted Russian President Vladimir Putin statement that Moscow would deploy “all weapon systems available to us” if Russia’s territorial integrity is threatened, as saying he would use nuclear bombs against the attackers… which he said is a misinterpretation. However, U.S./NATO politicians and the Western media ignore his rebuttal and insist Russia is ready to start a nuclear war. Russia has an arsenal of about 2,000 tactical nukes, which are also identified as battlefield or nonstrategic weapons.
Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, a professor of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, wrote, “Tactical nuclear weapons vary in yields from fractions of 1 kiloton to about 50 kilotons, compared with strategic nuclear weapons, which have yields that range from about 100 kilotons to over a megaton, though much more powerful warheads were developed during the Cold War.”
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the evolution of the war in Ukraine and the increasing threat of a nuclear confrontation with each passing day. (See “EU BORRELL SAYS RUSSIAN ARMY WOULD BE ‘ANNIHILATED’ IF PUTIN USES NUKES IN UKRAINE,” “PUTIN SENDS STERN WARNING TO THE WEST, VOWS TO KEEP UP FIGHT IN UKRAINE” and “PUTIN WARNS WEST TO STOP SENDING DEADLY WEAPONS OR RUSSIA WILL HIT ‘OBJECTS THAT WE HAVEN’T YET STRUCK.’”).
Last month, we reported that President Joe Biden told a Democratic fundraiser in New York that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is at its highest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Biden’s comments came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the West to take “preventive action” to stop Moscow from using tactical nukes.
U.S. Instigates
Alexander Grushko, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told Russia’s RIA news agency that the U.S. was provocative when it sent an upgraded B61 nuclear bomb to various NATO bases. The effort to update its aging arsenal on the continent.
“We cannot ignore the plans to modernize nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” he said.
The bombs can be air-launched by the aircraft platforms such as B-2A, F-15E, F-16C/D, F-16 MLU, PA-200, F-35, and B-21, according to The Eurasian Times.
“Modernization of US B61 nuclear weapons has been underway for years, and plans to safely and responsibly swap out older weapons for the upgraded B61-12 versions is part of a long-planned and scheduled modernization effort. It is in no way linked to current events in Ukraine and was not sped up in any way,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told Politico.
Grushko said the action lowered the nuclear threshold.
TRENDPOST: The U.S. continues to sell fear to keep the public opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite Russia continuing to write off those concerns.
Andrei Kelin, Russia’s ambassador to Britain, told the BBC that he does not believe his country will use tactical nukes in Ukraine. Like Putin, he said he took issue with Liz Truss, the former prime minister, and said she was “belligerent” and inexperienced. He said she was not a “professional military man,” but she would be able to prolong the conflict if she would like.
Russia’s official nuke policy is that it will employ them if the “very existence of the state is threatened.”
Putin told the Valdai International Discussion Club last month that Russia sees no need to use nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine.
“There is no point in that, neither political, nor military,” he said.
Putin told the audience that he found former British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s comments that she would not hesitate to use nukes as problematic.
“What were we supposed to think?” he said. “We saw that as a coordinated position, an attempt to blackmail us.”
In the meantime, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week and the two spoke about the risk of a nuclear escalation.
“The international community should … jointly oppose the use or threats to use nuclear weapons, advocate that nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought, in order to prevent a nuclear crisis in Eurasia,” Xi said.