Putin lapdog sends chilling nuclear warning to US and West | World | News
An ally of Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will retaliate if any country continues nuclear tests. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov specifically name-checked the United States in his warning before accusing Europe of stalling Ukrainian peace talks.
According to state media, Mr. Ryabkov claimed that Russia had observed that the United States was spending some time preparing the nuclear testing infrastructure. “If a country with this capability makes the wrong decision to conduct a nuclear test, and Washington is clearly our focus, then we will immediately retaliate,” the senior Russian diplomat said. His comments follow similar warnings made by the Russian President at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi last week.
Putin claimed that “some countries” were preparing nuclear tests and said Russia would conduct its own test in response.
This comes at a time of rising tensions between Washington and Moscow, the world’s two largest nuclear weapons powers.
The last remaining nuclear weapons agreement between Russia and the United States is set to expire in February, but the Kremlin has offered to extend it for another year.
The New START pact, signed by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to a maximum of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.
Russia, meanwhile, has also moved to leave a deal designed to reduce stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium from Cold War-era nuclear warheads.
Donald Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with Putin during Ukraine peace talks.
Mr Ryabkov said the “strong momentum” that emerged after the summit between the two leaders aimed at ending the war had largely “exhausted”.
“This is the result of the destructive actions of the Europeans,” he said.
Mr. Trump welcomed Mr. Putin to Anchorage, Alaska, in August, but little progress has been made since then.
The US President called Russia a “paper tiger” and said he was “disappointed” in Putin.
In a major shift in his stance on the war, Mr. Trump said last month that Ukraine could regain all of the territory seized by Russia.
