RUSSIA’S nuclear doctrine needed to be revised to adapt to new realities, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
He explained that it was necessary to update Russia’s ‘nuclear vision into realities of the modern day’.
‘What is the most striking example of the realities of the modern day? Authority in the White House, in the United States takes a decision to use their weapons, American produced weapons, against the Russian Federation,’ he said during a broadcast by the Indian news agency ANI.
‘We needed that update, we ensured this,’ Peskov emphasised.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving the Foundations of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence, the country’s updated nuclear doctrine. The document has been published.
The fundamental principle of the doctrine is that the use of nuclear weapons is a measure of last resort to protect the country’s sovereignty.
The emergence of new military threats and risks prompted Russia to clarify the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.
In particular, the amended doctrine expands the range of countries and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence, as well as the list of military threats that such deterrence is designed to counter.
In addition, the document states that Russia will now view any attack by a non-nuclear country supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack.
Moscow also reserves the right to consider a nuclear response to a conventional weapons attack threatening its sovereignty, a large-scale launch of enemy aircraft, missiles, and drones targeting Russian territory, their crossing of the Russian border, and an attack on its ally Belarus.
Russia’s special military operation is taking longer because it was launched against the Kiev regime but now continues as a conflict with NATO’s participation, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
‘When it all started, it started against the Kiev regime. And now it’s continuing as a war between Russia and NATO. That’s why it took a little bit longer. And it will take a little bit longer,’ he told India’s ANI news agency.
‘I don’t think it’s possible to answer the question, when can it end, but the only thing I can tell you, it will come to an end as soon as we reach our goals,’ the Kremlin official added.
Peskov reiterated that the Kiev regime rejects the possibility of negotiations with Russia.
‘It was a special presidential decree by Zelensky forbidding any president of Ukraine any negotiations with the Russians,’ he explained.
‘That’s why we continue our military operation because a possibility of peaceful negotiations is now being denied both by Kiev and their rulers in Washington,’ Putin’s spokesman stressed.
Russia said Ukraine fired US-supplied long-range missiles into the country on Tuesday, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.
Ukraine used the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) in a strike on Russia’s Bryansk region this morning, the Russian ministry of defence said.
Five missiles were shot down and one damaged, with its fragments causing a fire at a military facility in the region, it said.
In a statement, the defence ministry said the strike was launched at 03:25 (00:25 GMT).
A fire caused by fallen debris from one of the missiles was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, it said.
The strike represents the first time the long-range missiles have been used on Russia’s internationally recognised territory after Washington signalled Ukraine had permission to do so. Russia has vowed to ‘react accordingly’.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would ‘proceed from the understanding’ that the missiles were operated by ‘American military experts’.
‘We will be taking this as a renewed face of the western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,’ he told a press conference at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro.
The countries of the collective West have failed to bring the issue of Ukraine to the forefront of the agenda of the G20 summit in Brazil, Lavrov said.
‘Of course, the West has tried to bring the issue of Ukraine to the forefront. It failed, no one from the countries of the world majority, the Global South, supported it,’ the top diplomat said at a press conference after his participation in the summit.
According to the foreign minister, Russia and its partners from developing countries insisted that the text (of the G20 summit’s final declaration) be dedicated to ‘all conflicts, the need to resolve each and every conflict that is taking place on the planet today, first of all in the Middle East’.
‘There is a clause on Ukraine (in the document), which we agreed with, because the most important part of it is the call for a just and rational dialogue on peace on realistic foundations,’ Lavrov emphasised.
- NATO allies make individual decisions on whether or not they can authorise Ukraine to use their weapons for strikes inside Russia, the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said ahead of the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union in Defence Ministers’ format in Brussels on Tuesday.
‘It’s up to an individual ally to decide what they do. I am not going into whether individual allies should say yes or no to what they are doing,’ he told reporters.
The NATO chief added: ‘I would generally say let’s not communicate too much and not make our adversaries more wise than is necessary.
‘Today we will discuss how to help Ukraine to prevail. That means more aid, more money,’ he revealed though.
On November 17, The New York Times reported that US President Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles for strikes inside Russia, citing sources. Later, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols confirmed this information.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated that some EU countries, too, have authorised the use of their weapons for strikes deep inside Russia from Ukrainian territory.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine stipulates a potential nuclear strike in response to Kiev’s use of Western-made conventional missiles against Russia. Earlier, he described the West’s latest decision as a qualitatively new round of escalation.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 320 troops in the Kursk area in 24 hours, with six Ukrainian servicemen surrendering as prisoners of war (POW), the Russian Defence Ministry reported on Tuesday.
In total, the enemy has lost more than 33,990 troops since the fighting began in the region, it said.
The Russian government has allocated some 5.9 billion roubles ($58.7 million) from its Reserve Fund to provide additional aid to the residents of the Kursk and Belgorod regions, who lost their basic necessities, as well as to compensate the spending of the families that were forced to leave their homes due to shelling by Ukraine.
According to the order signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, more than 3.9 billion roubles ($38.8 million) were allocated to helping the residents of the Kursk Region who lost their basic necessities.
News of the latest situation was Russia’s Battlegroup North defeated Ukrainian armed formations in the areas of the settlements of Daryino, Zeleny Shlyakh, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Nizhny Klin and Novoivanovka.
Russian tactical and operational/tactical aircraft, missile forces hit enemy manpower and equipment in the Kursk and Sumy regions.
The operation to destroy Ukrainian forces is ongoing.
On Monday, Ukraine lost more than 320 troops, two tanks, including a German-made Leopard 2, one Bradley infantry fighting vehicle of US manufacture, an armoured personnel carrier, 15 armoured combat vehicles, 10 vehicles, three self-propelled artillery systems and an electronic warfare station. Six Ukrainian soldiers surrendered as POWs.
Since the beginning of hostilities in the Kursk Region, Kiev has lost over 33,990 troops, 215 tanks, 141 infantry fighting vehicles, 116 armoured personnel carriers, 1,190 armoured combat vehicles, 968 motor vehicles, 294 artillery pieces, 40 multiple rocket launchers, including 11 HIMARS and six MLRS of US manufacture, 13 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport and loading vehicles, 67 electronic warfare stations, 13 counter-battery radars, four air defence radars, 27 pieces of engineering and other equipment, including 13 counter-obstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle, six armoured repair and recovery vehicles, as well as a command and staff vehicle.