Russia Ambassador Warns U.S. Resolution Pushes for Nuclear War Over Ukraine
Newsweek | #PRESS
In comments shared with Newsweek, Russia's ambassador to the United States has warned that a new resolution proposed by two U.S. senators threatens to push Washington and its NATO military alliance closer to a nuclear exchange with Moscow.
Should such a war of mass destruction erupt, he warns, the U.S. would not be spared by its distance from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine now entering its 17th month.
In the wake of Russia's decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring ally Belarus, which also borders Ukraine, and lingering concerns about the state of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant located in the midst of the war, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut proposed a resolution Thursday that would consider any nuclear-related provocation by Russia or Belarus in Ukraine as a direct attack on NATO, triggering its collective defense clause.
The proposed resolution "views the use of any tactical nuclear weapon by the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, or their proxies, or the destruction of a nuclear facility, dispersing radioactive contaminates into NATO territory causing significant harm to human life as an attack on NATO requiring an immediate response, including the implementation of Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty."
Criticizing the move, Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov warned that "this is not just another crazy initiative by Russophobe U.S. senators."