Russia, US reaffirm impossibility of winning nuclear war

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that Moscow and Washington should reaffirm the idea it will be impossible to win a nuclear war.

"The Americans and we have made two fundamental statements since the Soviet era to the effect nobody can win a nuclear war and for that reason it cannot happen. It might be a good idea to reaffirm this postulate in the current context," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview to RT France, Paris Match and Le Figaro.

Lavrov recalled that the United States’ newly-adopted nuclear doctrine considerably lowers the threshold of using nuclear weapons.

"Low yield nuclear warheads are being made with the obvious intention to use them as a possible means of warfare, which would conceptually undermine all existing agreements stipulating that it is a weapon of mutual deterrence and by no means a weapon of conducting war. In the meantime, this is precisely the role of low yield warheads that was described in the new nuclear doctrine," he said.

On February 2, 2018 the Pentagon made public its updated nuclear doctrine saying that Washington spread its nuclear deterrence obligations to more than 30 countries. The Pentagon said it did not rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons in case of an attack against the United States with conventional weapons. For this the doctrine envisages creation of low yield nuclear warheads.