MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/. Russia’s Defense Ministry has information that Washington has devised a secret strategy of countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov said on Monday.

"The Russian Defense Ministry has information about the development in the United States of a secret Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. According to the plan of the strategy devisers, the priority areas of the US Department of Defense activity are: ensuring the defense of the states’ territory against external aggression using WMD; unconditional deterrence of potential adversaries from using WMD against the US and its allies; establishing combined units capable of effectively fighting and winning in conditions of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear contamination," the Russian general said.

By abandoning work on a verification protocol within the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the United States is creating administrative and technical structures that can be involved in dual-use research, including for offensive purposes, Kirillov said.

The open (unclassified) part of the document published in September indicates that in the Pentagon’s estimates the Russian Federation, China, Iran and North Korea view weapons of mass destruction as a means of limiting the US capability of achieving strategic objectives in wars and military conflicts, the Russian general pointed out.

"According to the Strategy, Russia is described as a source of ‘acute threat’ to US security in the medium to long term. The People's Republic of China is identified as a 'growing threat.' It is stressed that Beijing has recently made significant progress in modernizing its strategic nuclear forces. The DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and Iran are identified as persistent threats," Kirillov said, citing the document.