©Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS
The world faces a global conflict if Washington’s goal is to defeat Moscow.
Russia will defend itself by any means, including with nuclear weapons, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.
"It is obvious to all the powers that be that if the US wants to defeat Russia, we are heading for a conflict on a global scale. If the US wants to defeat Russia, we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including of the nuclear kind," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.
Imminent solution
Medvedev recalled that the day before, President Vladimir Putin gave his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly which announced, among other things, the suspension of Russia's participation in the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, New START). "This decision was long overdue, I pointed to it last year," the politician said.
According to his assessment, the decision, which was due to the war declared on Russia by the US and other NATO countries, will have big reverberations for the world at large and for Washington in particular.
"After all, the American establishment's reasoning so far has been the following: we will interfere in your affairs, we will supply copious amounts of weapons to the Kiev regime, we will work to defeat Russia, we will limit and destroy you, but strategic security is a separate topic. It's not related to the overall context of the US-Russia relationship. It is almost like a sacred cow," Medvedev noted.
This conclusion, he continued, is "worse than a crime - it is the Americans’ grave mistake". According to the politician, this is a mistake "born of their mania grandiosa," that is, their sense of superiority and impunity.
He quoted Putin as saying that it was impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and noted that "this is exactly why we have suspended New START (for now)". "Let the US elites who have lost touch with reality think about what they have achieved. Let's also watch the reaction of other NATO nuclear powers: France and the UK. Their strategic nuclear forces were not usually included in the list of nuclear warheads and carriers when preparing agreements between the United States and the USSR (Russia), but it is high time to do so," Medvedev summed up.
Western reaction to Russia’s New START decision doesn’t give hope for dialogue — Kremlin
The Western reaction to Russia’s suspension of its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty doesn’t give a reason to hope for its readiness for talks, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
"We are seeing the initial reaction. It’s quite consolidated among the representatives of the collective West. This reaction, of course, doesn’t give us a reason to hope for any readiness for dialogue or talks," he said.
The spokesman said it’s important for Russia to do anything it takes to ensure its security, including in the realm of arms control.
"Time goes on, circumstances change, and it’s important for Russia to do everything in this respect to ensure its security, including in the issues of strategic stability and arms control," he said.
Peskov also said it’s important to be patient "in expectation of the time when Russia’s opponents will be ripe for a normal dialogue."
Russia to continue to insist on fair probe into explosions of Nord Stream — Kremlin
Russia will continue to work to prevent the collective West from hushing up the search for those responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with reporters on Wednesday.
He was commenting on the results of a meeting of the UN Security Council on the topic of gas pipeline explosions.
"On the one hand, we managed to draw attention to the need for a thorough and transparent investigation to confirm those suspicions, which are supported, by the way, by some quite detailed, surprisingly, investigations regarding who could be behind this sabotage, and this can and should be characterized as a terrorist act against critical energy infrastructure for the European continent," Peskov said.
He also added that "on the other hand, we come up against a brick wall of unwillingness to do this, on the part of the countries of the collective West, and, on the contrary, we see their desire not to focus too much on this issue and gradually ensure that this topic is swept under the rug."
"We will continue to work to prevent them from doing so," the spokesman concluded.
He stressed that the refusal to give Moscow access to the investigation of the Nord Stream explosions hampers the search for the truth.
"Here we are limited in our capabilities. Obviously, it concerns the territorial waters of other states, which are currently categorically denying Russia’s right to take part in the investigation or conduct its own [investigation] in their territorial waters. We regard this as a very negative manifestation that does not contribute to the search for truth and identifying those who are guilty of this terrorist act. But, of course, Russia will continue to do everything possible," Peskov summed up.
About sabotage on Nord Stream pipelines
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported unprecedented damage that occurred the day before on three strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines.
On September 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists registered two explosions on the pipeline routes. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office launched a criminal case based on charges of international terrorism.
On February 8, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article, which said, citing sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022, and Norwegians activated the bombs three months later.
According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden personally, following nine months of discussions with White House security specialists. White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a comment to TASS that Hersh’s account was "utterly false and complete fiction.".
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