Director of the Foreign Ministry Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Vladimir Yermakov’s interview with TASS News Agency, April 25, 2023

Question: Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept says that in order to eliminate the conditions for unleashing a global war and risks of using nuclear and weapons Moscow will give priority attention to strategic deterrence and to strengthening and developing the system of international treaties in the area of strategic stability. What practical steps will the Foreign Ministry take in this connection?

Vladimir Yermakov: Considering the tectonic shifts that are taking place in the process of the rise of a new world order, the Foreign Ministry of Russia is part of the effort to strengthen our national security and strategic stability as a whole. We will continue to work energetically in accordance with our competences and the goals set out in the Foreign Policy Concept. Our goal in the geopolitical context is comprehensive and provides for building a fair multipolar world based on the principle of equal and indivisible security.

In the current circumstances, it is impossible to hold any meaningful talks with the United States or the West as a whole. Poisoned with the venom of pseudo-exceptionalism, Washington is not ready for an equal dialogue. The United States is using every opportunity to maintain its increasingly shaky position of “global hegemon” and is therefore resolved to aggravate confrontation with Russia and other states which do not accept the patently objectionable ideas of Pax Americana.

Therefore, we have to give priority attention to containing the destructive aspirations of the West. In this sense, the revamped Foreign Policy Concept of Russia highlights the need for taking political and diplomatic efforts to create conditions for rooting out the remaining elements of Western domination. While firmly upholding our interests, we will work consistently to encourage these countries to see that there is no alternative to creating the foundations of a harmonious and safe existence for everyone in a polycentric world.

At the same time, our task is to comprehensively promote productive cooperation with the constructive majority of the global community that maintains friendly relations with Russia, including in the context of strengthening regional and global security. It is becoming increasingly clear that the odds are in favour of the countries that are interested in the gradual development of a fair and stable multipolar world order.

To ensure lasting stability, we will need to seriously overhaul the shaky architecture of international security. It must act in practice rather than on paper to neutralise the potential for conflict based on mutual respect for each other’s fundamental interests. This implies above all the stabilisation of relations among the nuclear states that are permanent members of the UN Security Council and bear special responsibility for peace and global security.

If the United States and its allies ultimately show that they are ready for this, there will be a chance for reaching new viable agreements with them in the areas of strategic stability and arms control. We have not abandoned the possibility of signing international treaties to regulate our relations with the West in the field of strategic stability in the future, after we attain the goals of the ongoing special military operation. I would like to repeat that this is only possible based on respect for Russia’s fundamental interests. This is the underlying message of the Foreign Policy Concept.

Question: This concept says that Russia can use its Armed Forces not only for repelling but also preventing an armed attack on Russia or its allies. What weapons systems could be used to prevent an attack?

Vladimir Yermakov: Russia will continue to use predominantly peaceful means, such as diplomacy and talks, to settle interstate disputes and conflicts.

However, if non-military methods fail to reach the desired effect and an aggression against us is unavoidable, we reserve the right to use any available method to protect our national security.

As for the hypothetical possibility of using nuclear weapons for defence, we will continue to be guided by the fundamental provisions that were clearly set out in the Military Doctrine and the Fundamentals of Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence State Policy.

Question: What awaits the Start Treaty if the conflict in Ukraine continues indefinitely and the United States continues its line towards a hybrid war with Russia? What exactly can Washington do to improve the situation in this area?

Vladimir Yermakov: If the United States continues following its current path of confrontation with Russia, increasing the stakes for an armed conflict, the future of the Start Treaty could be predetermined. But if a worst-case scenario develops, that is, if Washington brings the situation to a military conflict between the world’s biggest nuclear powers, humanity will have to worry about the destiny of the entire world instead of trying to save the START treaty.

This confirms once again the fact that today the most acute threat is related not so much to the dynamics of incentives for a massive first strike, which agreements like the Start Treaty were largely designed to curb, as to the danger of nuclear escalation stemming from a direct military confrontation between nuclear powers. To my deep regret, these risks are steadily growing. 

This is exactly why we keep emphasising the risks in the US and NATO’s actions. They seem to have plunged into an illusion of impunity as they play around with chimeras like “escalation control” and “escalation dominance.” We continue sending the West sobering signals on the need to prevent a disaster, but they remain deaf to our appeals. Moreover, they maliciously distort them for propaganda purposes.   

As for opportunities to improve the situation, the United States should immediately take specific steps to deescalate tensions and fully give up its hostile course of undermining Russia’s security. There is simply no other way of reversing this negative trend.

Question: What is the possibility of drafting a treaty that could replace the START treaty and take into account the nuclear arsenals in France and Britain? Or would it be impossible to come to terms because of current tensions?

Vladimir Yermakov: This possibility does not exist in the current situation. Arms control is inseparable from the general geopolitical and military strategic situation. Any serious steps in this area are always linked with constructive political processes in relations between the contracting parties. There should be at least mutual realisation of the need for dialogue-based solutions and the political will to encourage the sides to conduct substantive talks based on compromise.

The West is not doing anything like this. On the contrary, the US and its allies are waging a total hybrid war against Russia in a bid to inflict a strategic military defeat on our country and to try to contain it politically and economically. They hope that they will eventually manage to subordinate a weakened Russia to Western dictate from a position of strength.

However, as history has shown many times, this approach to Russia has no prospects for success. All the wars unleashed by the collective West against us have not ended in its favour. The current initiators of this confrontation should think twice about repeating the lessons of “military geography” that they seem to have forgotten.

Question: There have been recent reports about Russia’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus that caused a negative response in the West. Do you think the West would do the same in Poland and Lithuania, the countries bordering on Belarus? Would this step by the West increase the risk of nuclear escalation?

Vladimir Yermakov: The West can keep its negative response to itself. We are interested in it to the same extent to which the NATO countries were, for decades, interested in Russia’s concerns over US nuclear weapons in Europe. What really matters to us is the need to ensure our national security, in this case, the security of Russia and Belarus as the Union State.

It would be a mistake to forget the sequence of events and who exactly began to escalate tensions in this area. Warsaw made official requests to deploy US nuclear weapons in Poland long before we had to take countermeasures to make up for the growing imbalances in the overall alignment of forces with NATO. The importance of these imbalances has tangibly grown against the backdrop of NATO’s sharp transition from hostility to an open and hyperactive front.

I would also like to remind you that US nuclear weapons are deployed at six military facilities in five countries on our continent, of which the US is not a part. In effect, Washington has for decades kept its nuclear weapons thousands of miles away from its national territory – on advanced bases where the NATO countries can quickly hit strategic targets in Russia and Belarus. In the meantime, we are acting as two fraternal countries – a Union State with a common defence space.

Incidentally, it has been openly reported for some time that Washington is interested in previously mothballed facilities for storing US nuclear weapons in the countries from which they were withdrawn after the end of the Cold War.

If the US and NATO escalate tensions further, we will evaluate the arising risks and find ways of responding to them. Our response could take various forms, including an asymmetrical response.

Question: The United States is visibly increasing its activity in creating hypersonic weapons. They made 12 test launches last year. And although the US Air Force said the last tests on March 13 were unsuccessful, before that, Washington pointed to success in this area. How does Moscow assess the current US progress in the development of hypersonic weapons? Is there any reason to worry in this regard that in the foreseeable future the Americans will fully develop this technology that can compete with Russian technologies?

Vladimir Yermakov: The United States is clearly hurt that Russia is seriously ahead of them in the development and deployment of advanced hypersonic weapons. At the same time, the US’s attempts to eliminate this gap are generally ineffective.

However, we have no illusions. The US is still a high-tech country with the largest military budget, and one day it will get its hypersonic projects right. But, as President of Russia Vladimir Putin noted, if necessary, our specialists can come up with something else in the meantime.

We are not obsessed with a “hypersonic race.” Based on the current defence tasks and evolving threats, we will continue to calmly and systematically improve some of our respective weapons based on the principle of as low as reasonably practicable.

Question: Earlier, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Japan was on the path to militarisation. For example, Tokyo is considering plans to deploy American hypersonic weapons on Japanese territory. If this happens, how will Moscow respond? What consequences does this imply?

Vladimir Yermakov: The path Japan has chosen does add tension to the already heated atmosphere in the Asia-Pacific region, where the security situation continues to degrade. While remaining under the “nuclear umbrella” the Americans opened over Japan, Tokyo is not only building up its military cooperation with Washington, but has also moved on to developing its own armaments on a scale unprecedented since World War II. This fully applies to the rocket technology mentioned in your question.

The speed characteristics of American made missile-based weapons that could appear in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, are not the only criterion by which we will evaluate such deployments. The range of missile systems is equally important. In particular, Russia’s interest in continuing to adhere to the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-based medium-range and shorter-range missiles in certain regions will fundamentally depend on the specific parameters of their range. But even now we can say with confidence that the destabilising military programmes of the United States and its allies are making our moratorium more fragile, both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe.

Question: There were reports that the US and Japan plan to develop hypersonic missile interceptor systems. How dangerous is this considering the possibility of counteracting Russian missiles in the future?

Vladimir Yermakov: The confrontation of, let’s say, a sword and a shield in military affairs goes back centuries. It will continue in the future as well. A lot of countries will improve both missile and anti-missile weapons based on their defence needs.

However, the main focus in this process must be placed on how the missile defence factor affects strategic stability. For example, the missile defence interaction between the United States and other Western countries creates significant problems due to the fact that the national potential of Washington’s allies is increasingly being integrated with elements of the US’s unrestricted global missile defence system. The US missile defence programme is highly destabilising, as we have consistently pointed out since the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.

This is why we will evaluate any preparations by the Western countries in this area, including in cooperation with our Chinese friends, from the angle of building up the potential of the US global missile defence system, which clearly undermines strategic stability.

Question: Earlier, North Korea’s KCNA news agency (Korean Central News Agency) reported that the DPRK considered US and South Korean military exercises to be provocations and warned Washington and Seoul that they were dealing with a nuclear state. Is there a risk that Pyongyang will have to use its nuclear capabilities for defence?

Vladimir Yermakov: Of course, there is a risk of nuclear escalation due to increasing tensions on and around the Korean Peninsula. However, we fundamentally disagree with attempts to blame Pyongyang for whipping up this tension. It is clear to any unbiased observer that this does not correspond to the realities emerging in the region, where provocative actions are systematically carried out under the decisive influence of the United States; and Washington is completely obsessed with methods of pressure and coercion.

For our part, we see a priority task in conscientious efforts to create favourable conditions for continuing a patient dialogue on making mutually acceptable arrangements to ensure security in the region.