The world was reminded of Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal by Dmitry Medvedev, former president and deputy chairman of Russia’s security council. He said that they could use them against an adversary state even if it doesn’t first.
Medvedev spoke on Saturday, March 26th and detailed four scenarios in Russia’s nuclear doctrine. The Guardianreported.
“We have a special document on nuclear deterrence. This document clearly indicates the grounds on which the Russian Federation is entitled to use nuclear weapons. There are a few of them, let me remind them to you: number one is the situation, when Russia is struck by a nuclear missile. The second case is any use of other nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies.
“The third is an attack on a critical infrastructure that will have paralysed our nuclear deterrent forces. And the fourth case is when an act of aggression is committed against Russia and its allies, which jeopardised the existence of the country itself, even without the use of nuclear weapons, that is, with the use of conventional weapons.”
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Medvedev added that there are a number of other dangers. “determination to defend the independence, sovereignty of our country, not to give anyone a reason to doubt even the slightest that we are ready to give a worthy response to any infringement on our country, on its independence”.
In response, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky appeared at Qatar’s Doha Forum via video link and cautioned countries of the threat Russia poses. Russia is the largest nuclear weapon stockpile in the world, with approximately 6,000 warheads.
“Russia is deliberating bragging they can destroy with nuclear weapons, not only a certain country but the entire planet,” Zelensky said.
The talk of nuclear weapons from Medvedev comes as Russian could lose the key city of Kherson in southern Ukraine which was one of the first places to fall to Russia when the invasion into the country began on February 24, Ukraine’s defence ministry, Markian Lubkivskyi has claimed.
“I believe that today the city will be fully under the control of Ukrainian armed forces,” he said. “We have finished in the last two days the operation in the Kyiv region so other armed forces are now focused on the southern part trying to get free Kherson and some other Ukrainian cities.”
This is not the first mention of nuclear weapons in the ongoing war. Putin placed nuclear forces on “special alert” three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” and warned that “Anyone who tries to prevent us from doing our work is a thief.” in Ukraine would see “You have never seen consequences in your life”.
Russian President’s spokesperson refused to say whether Putin would use nuclear weapons in war. CNN’s Christiane Ampour was pressed by Dmitry Peskov about the matter. “Well, we have a concept of domestic security, and, well, it’s public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used.
“So, if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used, in accordance with our concept. There are no other reasons that were mentioned in that text.”
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