The possibility of reducing the nuclear arsenals of the “nuclear five” countries (Russia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and France) and their complete elimination in the current conditions is minimal. This was announced on April 27 by Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Belousov.
Belousov noted that Moscow shares the international community’s desire to create a secure world free from nuclear threats. However, practical steps toward this goal require a stable international environment.
“For progress on this path, it is necessary to create a favorable military and political climate,” the diplomat stressed in an interview. “We must admit that under the current extremely difficult conditions of increasing international destabilization, rising tensions, and the degradation of relations between nuclear states caused by our opponents, such progress is scarce.”
According to the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, disarmament efforts are now regressing. He pointed to the actions of the Western “nuclear troika” as contradicting the idea of moving toward “nuclear zero.”
“The plans of the Western nuclear troika to build up their nuclear arsenals, create new infrastructure for nuclear needs—including on non-nuclear allies’ territories—and involve these nations in increasingly destabilizing military-nuclear patterns can hardly be seen as a willingness or invitation to move toward nuclear zero,” he concluded.
