RUSSIA DESIRES A NUCLEAR TREATY – French nuclear arsenals must be part of any future nuclear arms talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that any future nuclear arms reduction talks with the United States would have to also cover the nuclear arsenals of Britain and France.
Putin was speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The 2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – which is considered to be the time when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to intentional nuclear war.
Putin, the primary decision maker on Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, is considering how to respond if the United States and its European allies allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike deep into Russia.
