Donald Trump last week ordered the ‘repositioning’ of US nuclear submarines in response to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s ‘highly provocative’ social media comments
Russia has urged caution following Donald Trump’s recent statement ordering the ‘repositioning’ of US nuclear submarines.
The US president last Friday demanded that two submarines should be “positioned in the appropriate regions”. Trump’s move was a response to what he deemed “highly provocative” comments on social media by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev concerning the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.
However, the Kremlin today played down the significance of the US leader’s remarks, adding that it didn’t want to get into a public argument with him. It comes after Putin warns of nuclear war after unleashing another night of hell on Ukraine.
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated that the US should be “very careful” when talking about nuclear capabilities. “Russia is very cautious about nuclear nonproliferation matters, and we believe everyone should be very careful about nuclear rhetoric,” he said.
In addition, the Russia Foreign Ministry today issued a statement ‘on the moratorium on the deployment of ground-based-intermediate-range [INF] and short-range-missiles’. In 2019, the US formally withdrew from the INF treaty – an arms control pact – which had been in place between the Americans and Russia since 1987.
However, the Kremlin has now accused the ‘US and its allies’ of building a collection of ‘destabilising’ INF missiles in ‘regions adjacent to the Russian Federation’.
The statement added that this creates, ‘a direct threat to the security of our country, and of a strategic nature.
‘In general, such a development of events carries a serious negative charge and significant harmful consequences for regional and global stability, including a dangerous escalation of tensions between nuclear powers.’
It went on, saying that ‘the Russian Foreign Ministry notes the disappearance of the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons and is authorised to declare that the Russian Federation no longer considers itself bound by the corresponding previously adopted self-restrictions.’
The Kremlin finished by saying that any ‘response measures’ would be made by the Russia’s ‘leadership’ based on the, ‘scale of deployment of American and other Western land-based intermediate-range missiles, as well as the general development of the situation in the area of international security and strategic stability.’
However, despite the Kremlin’s press release regarding the moratorium Peskov said that Russia did not see Trump’s recent statement as an escalation in any nuclear tension between the two countries.
He said: “We do not believe that we are talking about any escalation now. It is clear that very complex, very sensitive issues are being discussed, which, of course, are perceived very emotionally by many people.”
Peskov went on to seemingly distance Putin from Medvedev, a longtime prime minister under him who is now the deputy chairman of the national Security Council.
He said: “On the whole, certainly, we absolutely wouldn’t like to engage in such polemics, nor would we like to comment on that in any way,” before adding: “There can be no winner in a nuclear war.”