MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/. What British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, just elected as new prime minister, has said about her readiness to use nuclear weapons, if necessary, lowers the bar for their use, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with International Affairs magazine. An extract from the interview was uploaded to the periodical’s website on Monday.
"Of course, they are lowering [the bar]. But it is useless to argue with them on this score," Ryabkov said about Truss’ statement.
"In their very special manner, polished to perfection over centuries, they will tell everybody at once what reservations and disclaimers they have. They will make dozens of allusions and references and translate into a language that will mean nothing special has happened. Wasting time on discussions with this type of people makes no sense," Ryabkov said. "I would not like to build a chronology of statements by British officials on this subject. But their generally unrestrained rhetoric is striking, of course, and, by and large, considerably different from what we saw in the past."
On August 23, Truss vowed she would be ready to use nuclear weapons if need be.