Russia foreign minister: We won’t use nuke arms

RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is still committed to restrain itself from using its nuclear weapons despite warnings from politicians in Kremlin that Europe could face nuclear extinction if it pursues plans to give back to Ukraine its nuclear capability.

“There can be no winners in a nuclear war and so it must never be unleashed. That is our position. We are strongly committed to it,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state news agency TASS.

Kremlin had earlier said they will use conventional weapons in the war with Ukraine. However, speculations that Russia would use its nuclear weapons in Ukraine heightened after President Vladimir Putin ordered his nuclear weapons to a higher state of alert on February 27, three days after the start of the invasion. “No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more to create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history,” Putin had said.

Recently, former Foreign Minister of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski was quoted as saying that Putin violated the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 1994 that forced the Ukrainians to voluntarily dispose of its nuclear arsenal. He said Russia’s disregard for Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity justifies Nato’s move to arm Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

This caused Viacheslav Volodin, the head of State Duma or Russia’s lower house of parliament, to give this warning: “Sikorski is provoking a nuclear conflict in the center of Europe. He doesn’t think neither about the future of Ukraine nor about the future of Poland. In case his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe as well.”

Russia’s nuclear warheads are estimated at 5,977—thought to be the biggest arsenal in the world. Most of these warheads are strategic weapons—ballistic missiles or rockets which can be targeted over long distances. Around 1,500 of these warheads are already deployed in missile heads or submarines.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) nuclear powers—the US, France, and Uk—have combined nuclear warheads of 5,943. Ukraine, which originally has 1,500 nuclear warheads after the fall of Soviet Union, has no nuclear capabilty after these warheads were turned over to Russia and decommissioned.

Lavrov was asked what time is it in the Doomsday Clock—the imminent risk of nuclear apocalypse created and measured by atomic scientists at the height of the Cold War in 1947.

“You know, I am not keeping an eye on the project now. Some time ago, I followed the developments. At one time, it was seven minutes to midnight. I do not know where this hand is now,” he replied.

According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that runs the Doomsday Clock, as of March 2022, the clock is set at “100 seconds before midnight”

The Russian Foreign Minister recalled that it was Moscow which initiated the statement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” during the Russia-us summits, as well as those made by the leaders of the UN Security Council permanent member countries.