THEO VAN GOGH: “GROUND ZERO” GERMANY- Russia Ambassador to U.S. Says NATO Not Taking Nuclear War Threat Seriously

TOM O’CONNOR ON 5/5/22 NEWSWEEK

Russia’s envoy to the United States has told Newsweek that leaders of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance do not grasp the true gravity of a potential nuclear conflict erupting, as a tense war of words among powers looms over the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.

As officials and other influential figures of the U.S. and allied nations accuse the Kremlin of summoning the specter of nuclear war over NATO’s support for Ukraine against Russia’s devastating invasion, Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, disparaged what he called “a flurry of blatant misrepresentation of Russian officials’ statements on our country’s nuclear policy.”

In fact, he said it was those in the Western bloc that have proven irresponsible in their handling of what has been described as one of the most dangerous moments since the Cuban Missile Crisis six decades ago.”The current generation of NATO politicians clearly does not take the nuclear threat seriously,” Antonov told Newsweek.

Those who feel Russia was fueling the hysteria include top U.S. military leaders, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark A. Milley, who accused Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of “nuclear saber-rattling” after an interview last month in which Moscow’s top diplomat said that “the danger is serious, real, and we must not underestimate it.”

And while U.S. officials cast Russia as the aggressor in escalating nuclear tensions, Antonov called these accusations “baseless,” and “part of a propaganda campaign launched against Russia in response to the steps taken to neutralize threats to our national security emanating from the Ukrainian territory.”

He then outlined the “conditions under which the use of nuclear weapons is possible” as per Russia’s official doctrine, which he said states that such weapons of mass destruction “can be used in response to the use of WMD against Russia and its allies, or in the event of aggression against our country, when the very existence of the state is jeopardized.”

U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Control Party Operators and German Joint Fires Observers pass target data to B-52H Stratofortress bombers during a Dynamic Targeting and Close Air Support training event at the 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany on March 4. The B-52 constitutes part of the aerial component of the U.S. nuclear triad, and the bombers have been sent to Europe as part of an increased U.S. military presence on the continent in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.GERTRUD ZACH/TRAINING SUPPORT ACTIVITY EUROPE/U.S. ARMY

But Antonov believes his Western colleagues misread the weight of the nuclear risk, and that’s why Russian officials “have never stopped our efforts to reach agreements that will guarantee that a catastrophic confrontation will not be unleashed.”

“It is our country that in recent years has persistently proposed to American colleagues to affirm that there can be no winners in a nuclear war, thus it should never happen,” Antonov said.

He noted the inclusion of this “no winners” principle in the joint Russia-U.S. statement adopted after the June 2021 summit held between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and again among the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in January of this year.

Even before the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine on February 24, however, strategic stability between the two nations that hold roughly 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal had eroded. Now, the conflict leaves the future of one of the last bastions of diplomacy between Moscow and Washington even more uncertain.

Next month will mark two decades since the U.S. exit from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which for half a century marked a pioneering effort in reducing nuclear tensions in the heat of the Cold War. In August 2019, then-President Donald Trump abandoned the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, accusing Moscow of having first defied the agreement through the development of a new cruise missile in violation of the 310-3,420-mile range banned for land-launched weapons.

Since then, just one single yet significant treaty has bound the Russian and the U.S. nuclear arsenals, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). After disagreements between Moscow and Washington threatened to allow this accord to collapse as well, Biden heeded Putin’s offer to unconditionally extend it as one of the U.S. leader’s first foreign policy measures after taking office last year.

Antonov called New START “a universally recognized gold standard in the sphere of maintaining strategic stability and transparency between the major nuclear powers,” and said that “Russia has repeatedly drawn the attention of the United States that it is important to continue the joint work on an agreement that could replace New START and accommodate new realities of international security and development of military technologies.”

“Regrettably, Washington has unilaterally ‘frozen’ the bilateral strategic stability dialogue that was launched at the Geneva summit, thus jeopardizing the prospects of keeping the foundation of arms control in place,” he added. “Russia is ready to resume the consultations as soon as the United States is ready.”

The latest report submitted to Congress last month by the State Department assessed that both sides remained in compliance with New START.

The report also said that “the United States has made clear its concerns about Russia’s arsenal of theater-range nuclear weapons,” which commonly refers to weapons armed with low-yield, tactical warheads, of which the U.S. Intelligence Community assesses Russia possesses between 1,000-2,000, a figure that is “projected to grow.”

The U.S. has also developed low-yield warheads for use on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and Pentagon officials have called for even more applications. U.S. Strategic Command chief Admiral Charles A. Richard told lawmakers in a letter last month that “a non-ballistic, low-yield, non-treaty accountable system that is available without visible generation would be valuable.”

“The nation and our allies have not faced a crisis like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in over 30 years,” Richard said. “President Putin simultaneously invaded a sovereign nation while using thinly veiled nuclear threats to deter U.S. and NATO intervention.”