Last month, President Putin ordered that Russia’s nuclear forces be placed on high alert.
Moscow:
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN International on Tuesday that Russia would only use nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict if the country was facing an “existential threat.”
“We have a concept of homeland security and it’s public. You can read all the reasons why nuclear weapons are used,” Peskov said. “So if it is an existential threat to our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept.”
Peskov’s comments came as interviewer Christiane Amanpour pushed him on whether he was “convinced or convinced” that President Vladimir Putin would not use the nuclear option in the Ukraine context.
Days after the Russian military invaded Ukraine, Putin announced on February 28 that he had put the country’s strategic nuclear forces on high alert in a move that caused global alarm.
Asked about Peskov’s statement and Russia’s broader nuclear stance, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called Moscow’s rhetoric about the potential use of nuclear weapons “dangerous”.
“That’s not how a responsible nuclear power should act,” he told reporters.
That said, Kirby stressed that Pentagon officials “haven’t seen anything that would lead us to conclude that we need to change our strategic deterrence posture.”
“We monitor this as best we can every day,” he added.
Russia maintains the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads and has received minimal worldwide support for an attack on its former Soviet neighbor.
Western defense officials said after Putin’s February announcement that they had seen no significant signs of Russia’s deployment of nuclear forces – strategic bombers, missiles and ships implicit.
However, Moscow also warned that if the United States and its NATO allies provided warplanes to Ukraine, it could escalate and widen the war, potentially bringing Russia into direct confrontation with its armed adversaries. nuclear site in the West.
Earlier this month, Beatrice Fihn, who leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, warned that Putin is using nuclear “blackmail” to prevent the international community from interfering in his invasion of Ukraine.
“This is one of the scariest moments really when it comes to nuclear weapons,” she said.
Asked more about Russia’s attack in Ukraine, Peskov said it had no intention of occupying the neighboring country and insisted his country did not attack civilians.
The main goal of the “operation” is to “eliminate Ukraine’s military potential,” he said.
“This is why our military only targets military targets and military objects on Ukrainian territory. Not civilian targets,” he said.
Widespread photographic and video evidence supports accusations by human rights groups that Russian forces have attacked civilian targets in the former Soviet state.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
