Russia Urges Restraint In Nuclear Rhetoric Following Trump’s Submarine Directive

The Kremlin on Monday urged everyone to be careful about nuclear rhetoric, in its first response to Donald Trump’s statement that he had deployed two nuclear submarines closer to Russia. Trump had made the remarks in response to former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "In this case, it is obvious that American submarines are already on combat duty. This is an ongoing process, that’s the first thing," Reuters reported.  

"But in general, of course, we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way. Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric," he added. 

He claimed the issue to be very sensitive and complex and that he did not see Trump’s statement as an escalation in nuclear tension. He did not directly respond to the question whether the Kremlin had tried to warn Medvedev to tone down his online altercation with Trump. 

"Listen, in every country, members of the leadership... have different points of view on events that are taking place, different attitudes. There are people who are very, very tough-minded in the United States of America and in European countries, so this is always the case," he said.

"But the main thing, of course, is the position of President Putin. You know that in our country, foreign policy is formulated by the head of state, that is, President Putin," he asserted. 

Trump had earlier warned Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s deputy council, to “watch his words”. 

Putin, however, has claimed that his stance on a ceasefire remains unchanged and wants Ukraine to drop all NATO ambitions and concede to other demands floated by Moscow in the peace proposal.