VLADIVOSTOK, September 13. /TASS/. Russia views Washington’s statements proclaiming NATO a nuclear alliance as highly dangerous and fraught with escalation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing within the framework of the 8th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).

"We think that these statements by the US where it proclaims itself a nuclear alliance, NATO that is, are highly dangerous. We think that this word play only heightens risks and promotes the escalation of an already tense situation," the diplomat said. She noted that Moscow had "repeatedly registered statements and actions by Western countries in the nuclear realm which are hard to see as anything other than inciting or threatening."

In this context, Zakharova commented on the fact that the G20 final declaration contained a statement on the inadmissibility of using nuclear weapons. "I think that the inclusion of this provision is related to the international community realizing the sharp increase in strategic risks fraught with a nuclear escalation," she said.

"The rhetoric as well as practical actions in this sphere have toughened," the diplomat added. "Such as, for example, the Americans holding military drills as part of the framework of so-called nuclear groups within NATO, that is, those very countries that the US has made the testing grounds of its nuclear weapons in Europe," she concluded.