Medvedev Says Russia Can Use Nukes Even if Enemy Hasn’t Used Them First
Russian ex-president and deputy head of security council Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow can strike an enemy country with nuclear weapons even if it does not use such weapons first.
“We have a special document on nuclear deterrence. This document clearly indicates the grounds on which the Russian Federation is entitled to use nuclear weapons,” The Guardian quotes him as saying in a new interview.
“Number one is the situation when Russia is struck by a nuclear missile. The second case is any use of other nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies. The third is an attack on a critical infrastructure that will have paralyzed our nuclear deterrent forces,” Medvedev says.
“And the fourth case is when an act of aggression is committed against Russia and its allies, which jeopardized the existence of the country itself, even without the use of nuclear weapons, that is, with the use of conventional weapons,” he adds.
Biden Refuses to Rule Out First-Strike Use of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Under “Extreme Circumstances”
President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.
Since the Cold War, American policy has allowed for first-strike use of nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances,” such as responding to an invasion by conventional forces, or chemical or biological attacks.
But on the campaign trail, Biden had vowed to switch to a “sole purpose” doctrine, which maintains that the US would only use nuclear weapons to respond to another nation’s nuclear attack.
