MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. A nuclear war must never be fought, and there can be no winners in such war, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Alexander Venediktov said during a conference dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Caribbean missile crisis.
"We have stated it repeatedly and we continue to state our commitment to the well-known formula that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it must never be fought," Venediktov said.
He noted the Russian doctrine documents on this issue, including the basics of the state policy on nuclear deterrence.
"At the same time, many Western politicians, public figures and experts regularly dare to make statements that are not simply irresponsible, but border nuclear blackmail, they openly speak that use of weapons of mass destruction against Russia is acceptable," Venediktov underscored.
In this regard, he expressed his certainty that foreign politicians and public opinion leaders who speak about such things should turn to history, including the Caribbean crisis, and remember that even at the peak of the standoff of superpowers, the Americans and their European allies "did not dare to juggle threats of nuclear war even in words."
The official quoted Cicero, who said that history is the mentor of life.
"Today we need help of this mentor like never before in order to avoid tragic mistakes. In case of nuclear weapons, such mistakes can lead to irreversible consequences," Venediktov concluded.
He also noted that, shortly before the Caribbean crisis, US President J.F. Kennedy read a book about the events that led to World War I, and the impression he got from learning history became one of the factors that made the US leader to take a constructive position in the dialogue with the Soviet leadership.