Nuclear weapons are well protected in Russia

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

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Nuclear weapons and their components are well protected in Russia, announced Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov at the meeting of the Council on international relations in New York. "One of the myths that persist in the United States is that, first, nuclear weapons and their components are poorly guarded in Russia and even the so-called 'Russian mafia' has easy access to them. Secondly, the conservative military, representatives of secret services and defense industry secretly supply Iran or Iraq with nuclear weapons components and technologies forbidden for export. I can assure you it is pure rubbish," the minister stressed. He said that such myths about Russia are spread not only in movies and pseudo-analytical articles disseminated by Western media, but also used by unscrupulous adventurers to achieve financial gains. "Here is an example: there were some cases in Afghanistan when the 'black market' offered potential buyers containers allegedly filled with weapons-grade uranium that carried technical markings in Russian," Mr. Ivanov announced. "Ever since the creation of the Russian Federation as an independent state, we have never registered a case of disappearance of even a single gram of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium," the Russian defense minister underlined. Mr. Ivanov also shared his opinion in regard to the so-called "black list" of countries. "Russia, participating in various international mechanisms of export control, stands for an approach that envisions the elimination of 'double standards' and the so-called 'black lists' of countries," Mr. Ivanov stated. He said that none of the participants of international agreements should be exempt from observing their provisions. "Mechanisms of export control must not serve as a pretext for conducting unfair competition and pushing rivals from arms markets," the Russian minister emphasized. Mr. Ivanov noted that the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would advance the creation of a new system of international relations, and it would certainly become an additional obstacle on the way of nuclear proliferation. "In that respect, we are still concerned about the US position in relation to the ratification of this treaty. Besides, the recent decision of the U.S. government to conduct research in the sphere of sub-small nuclear weapons makes us believe that the future of the treaty is not so bright," the Russian minister stressed.

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