The risk of a nuclear conflict is now at its highest level in decades, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday, according to state-run news agency Tass.
"I would not like to indulge in a discussion whether the probability of a nuclear conflict is high today, but in any case it is higher than anything that we have seen over the past decades, let's put it this way," Ryabkov said on the platform of the Valdai discussion club, according to Tass.
Ryabkov reiterated that Moscow is not departing "from the key provisions, doctrinal and political ones." He said non-nuclear states, especially those not aligned with the United States, should "more loudly to call to order politicians in the Western capitals, including Washington, who have absolutely lost their sense of reality."
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was suspending his country's participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US during his much-delayed annual State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly.