Moscow considers talks on nuclear threat reduction vital, but any discussions by world powers should be broader in scope given the current state of affairs with regard to the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said.
The US signaled earlier that it is open to dialogue with Russia, China, and North Korea on nuclear security issues.
“In fact, our president has already spoken about this. Russia considers such contacts necessary and they cannot be postponed, but we must consider all security issues as a whole, taking into account the current state of affairs,” Peskov told a press briefing on Monday after being asked about the likelihood of Russia’s participation in talks.
“In the conditions of the war that is being waged against Russia with the indirect and even direct involvement of nuclear powers such as the US, UK, and France, it is absolutely impossible to talk about this without contextualizing the topic to all other security aspects,” he said.
On Sunday, US President Joe Biden called on global powers to continue taking steps to make the world safer by ridding it of nuclear weapons.
“Reducing the nuclear threat is important not despite the dangers of today’s world but precisely because of them,” Biden said in a statement congratulating this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners, the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization Nihon Hidankyo.
In August, the New York Times reported that Biden approved a US nuclear strategy to prepare for potential coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China, and North Korea. The newspaper cited the White House as saying the plan was approved in March and was not a response to a particular country or threat.
Moscow has always stressed that it has no wish to use nuclear weapons. However, Russian officials have warned that the West’s increasing involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which Moscow considers to be a proxy war waged by the West against Russia, could result in a direct confrontation.
Last month, President Vladimir Putin announced the intention to make critical changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine. This came in response to deliberations by the US and its allies on whether to grant permission for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. The proposed changes would allow the Russian leadership to treat an attack by a non-nuclear nation backed by a nuclear nation as a joint threat when deciding whether to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
The world is facing the growing threat of nuclear war as a result of the West’s “destructive policy,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned last week. She reiterated Moscow’s calls to consider the potential “catastrophic consequences” of these actions.