Reuters has picked up a report on the Itar-Tass news agency quoting First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying on Friday that Russia must achieve nuclear arms parity with the United States: “Military potential, to say nothing of nuclear potential, must be at the proper level if we want … to just stay independent … The weak are not loved and not heard, they are insulted, and when we have parity they will talk to us in a different way“.
Reuters reported, from Tass, that Ivanov told veterans and members of Russia’s military-industrial commission that “every year Russia would be now commissioning six or seven of its newest ‘Topol-M’ nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missiles — the first developed by Russia after the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union — can carry up to six warheads and are mounted on mobile launcher vehicles”. The Reuters report can be seen here.
Russian irritation with U.S. postures has been evident and growing in recent years, but the U.S. has appeared to be surprised by this — and continues not making concessions to Russia’s views and positions, within the Conference on Disarmament at the UN in Geneva, and elsewhere.