MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has refused to comment on whether the United States could drop mega-bombs on other countries after using it in Afghanistan.
"I don’t see any grounds for these speculations," Ryabkov said, while stressing that Moscow is ready to go as far as possible in cooperating in the war against the Islamic State terrorist group (outlawed in Russia).
"No matter what options the US military planners explore - it is up to them," Ryabkov stressed. "We insist that this should be within the framework of norms and principles of international law."
"We have always stated that the anti-IS fight is our shared mission and goal," Ryabkov said, noting that this can be achieved "only through cooperation, which includes military agencies."
Russia confirmed its commitments to the joint struggle against terrorism during the visit of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow earlier this week, Ryabkov said. However, there is no full-scale cooperation between Moscow and Washington in this area now, he noted. "There is only an exchange of information on the operational situation - and this is very limited," the diplomat said.
On Thursday, Washington dropped the now infamous GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, dubbed ‘The Mother of All Bombs,’ targeting a network of caves and tunnels of the Islamic State terrorist group in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province, in eastern Afghanistan. The 9.5-tonne non-nuclear bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command.
The AFP news agency reported citing the official statement of the Afghan government that the bomb killed at least 36 IS militants.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden noted on his Twitter page that the US mega-bomb attack was calculated to destroy a system of tunnels that Washington itself had bankrolled during the 1980s when the CIA-backed Mujahedeen were fighting the USSR.