{"id":123127,"date":"2022-02-28T17:03:46","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T00:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=123127"},"modified":"2022-02-28T17:03:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T00:03:46","slug":"russia-blames-uk-fm-for-elevated-nuclear-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/02\/28\/russia-blames-uk-fm-for-elevated-nuclear-alert\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia blames UK FM for elevated nuclear alert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy RT<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
The British foreign secretary made unacceptable\u201d statements on clashes\u201d between NATO and Russia, Putin\u2019s spokesman said<\/div>\n
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\"Russia<\/picture><\/div>\n
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Liz Truss during a panel discussion at the 58th Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 19, 2022 \u00a9 Getty Images \/ Ronald Wittek<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin placed Russia\u2019s deterrence forces \u2013 including nuclear weapons \u2013 on high alert in response to statements by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on potential conflict between NATO and Moscow.<\/p>\n

Statements were made by various representatives at various levels on possible altercations or even collisions and clashes between NATO and Russia,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Peskov told reporters.\u00a0We believe that such statements are absolutely unacceptable. I would not call the authors of these statements by name, although it was the British foreign minister.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Truss said that\u00a0if we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, we are going to see others under threat: the Baltics, Poland, Moldova, and it could end up in a conflict with NATO. We do not want to go there.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Truss did not specify how the UK could\u00a0stop\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Russia in Ukraine, although the British government has already sent anti-tank weapons and other\u00a0lethal aid\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to Kiev.<\/p>\n

However, a Foreign Office source told the BBC on Monday:\u00a0I don’t think anything Liz has said warrants that sort of rhetoric or escalation,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0adding that Truss has always spoken of NATO \u2013 which was formed with the explicit goal of opposing the Soviet Union \u2013 as a\u00a0\u00a0defensive alliance.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Websites<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n
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Read more<\/div>\n

Websites of major Russian media taken down by hackers<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While Putin\u2019s announcement does not signal any intent to use nuclear weapons, it has been received in the West as a reminder of the importance Moscow places on Ukraine, and its determination to keep the country out of NATO. Since the end of the Cold War, successive Russian leaders have consistently opposed the eastward expansion of the alliance, and Moscow considers the idea of a NATO-armed Ukraine on its borders an existential security threat.<\/p>\n

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki condemned Putin\u2019s decision to raise the alert level, accusing the Russian president of\u00a0manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Ukraine, Russia\u2019s operation is still underway, and fighting has taken place in the cities of Kharkov, Mariupol, and on the outskirts of Kiev. Tentative negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials took place in Belarus on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy RT The British foreign secretary made unacceptable\u201d statements on clashes\u201d between NATO and Russia, Putin\u2019s spokesman said Liz Truss during a panel discussion at the 58th Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, February 19, 2022 \u00a9 Getty Images \/ Ronald Wittek Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}