MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/. First President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev has called on Russian and US leaders Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden to reaffirm that nuclear war is unacceptable.
"Recently, Russia offered that all nuclear powers reaffirm the formula "Nuclear war is unacceptable and can have no winner." What prevents us from doing this? Let the Russian and US leaders reaffirm that first, and other will join them, I hope. Civil society, researchers, the youth - everyone must demand that," Gorbachev’s address to the participants of the international conference "The man who changed the world" reads.
In his welcome address, Gorbachev noted that he had received a message of congratulations from Biden on his 90th birthday on March 2, in which the US president notes that the prolongation of the New START treaty for five years shows that Russia and the US can cooperate in the area of nuclear disarmament.
"There is a colossal inertia in global politics. Others tried to stop the Cold War before us, there were such plans, meetings, talks. And some things were achieved. Good treaties, agreements were signed, and then everything fell through. Why did that happen? Likely because people still were set in their old ways, they couldn’t resist the temptation to get unilateral benefit," the address says.
According to Gorbachev, in order to end the Cold War, people had to overcome the divide between what is said and what is done.