MOSCOW: Russia will revise its military doctrine to allow a preventative nuclear strike against would-be aggressors, a top Kremlin policy-maker was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the powerful security council, said the conditions under which Russia could resort to atomic weapons are being reworked in the main strategy document and will be reviewed by President Dmitry Medvedev by the end of the year. “The conditions have been revised for the use of nuclear weapons to rebuff an aggression with the use of conventional weapons, not only on a massive-scale but on a regional and even local level,” Patrushev told the Izvestia newspaper.
“Variants are under considerations for the use of nuclear weapons depending on the situation and potential of a would-be aggressor,” he said. “In a critical situation for national security, a preventative nuclear strike on an aggressor is not ruled out.” Under its current military doctrine, Russia says it would only carry out a nuclear strike if it were attacked with weapons of mass destruction or if it were the victim of “large-scale aggression” using conventional arms.
Russian and US negotiators are now working furiously to agree on new arms cuts of their nuclear arsenal before a key Cold War-era disarmament treaty expires on December 5. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated the joint drive to achieve new arms reductions by this deadline after talks in Moscow this week. Clinton stressed to Russian university students on Wednesday that their country’s prosperity was dependent on its willingness to cultivate core freedoms, including the freedom to participate in the political process.
“Citizens must be empowered to help formulate the laws under which they live,” she told about 2,000 students at Moscow State University. “They need to know that their investments of time, money and intellectual property will be safeguarded by the institutions of government.” Clinton wrapped up a five-day tour of Europe with a series of informal meetings in Moscow and the Russian republic of Tatarstan aimed at helping redefine US-Russian relations.
In and interview to a Russian radio station on Wednesday, Clinton said the United States will continue to support and train Georgia’s military despite Russian objections. “Georgia is providing troops in Afghanistan and we are training troops to be able to go to Afghanistan,” Clinton told the Echo of Moscow radio. “We will help the Georgian people to feel like they can protect themselves,” she added, without giving further details. Despite a thaw in Russian-US relations, Clinton admitted that Georgia was a policy area on which Washington and Moscow did not see eye-to-eye. agencies
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