BRUSSELS, October 13. /TASS/. Chances of NATO resorting to the use of nuclear weapons ‘are extremely remote,’ NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference following a two-day meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers in Brussels.
Stoltenberg told the participants of the meeting that chances for NATO to resort to the use of nuclear weapons "are extremely remote" but the alliance would keep closely monitoring Russia’s future nuclear weapons’ exercises.
Speaking at a news conference earlier this week within the framework of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting on October 12-13 in Brussels, Stoltenberg announced that "So far, we have not seen any increased readiness or change in the nuclear posture, but we will remain vigilant, and, of course, we will never give them the privilege of telling them exactly how we will respond if they use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine…"
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on October 6 that Washington and other Western capitals may be interested in escalating the situation around the use of nuclear weapons in order to subsequently blame Moscow.
According to Zakharova, that was a part of Washington's destructive policy to ensure its global dominance, without regard to the danger of provoking a direct armed clash of the major nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on October 8 that the West resorted to ‘lies and manipulations’ attempting to display Russia as a source of nuclear threats. According to Russia’s top diplomat, the United States and its allies are actively trying to introduce the nuclear rhetoric regarding Ukraine on the global agenda.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called on NATO to deliver preemptive strikes on Russia. Last Thursday, Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky responded to Zelensky’s comment, saying that the Ukrainian president is dragging Western countries into nuclear rhetoric and pushing the entire world to the brink of an apocalypse.