The risk of a nuclear conflict has now reached its highest level in decades, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Wednesday, according to the state news agency TASS.

Sergey RyabkovPhoto: Kommersant photo agency / ddp USA / Profimedia

“I would not like to get into a discussion if the probability of a nuclear conflict is high today, but in any case it is higher than anything we have seen, say, in recent decades,” Ryabkov said during a discussion at the Platform of Valdai Negotiations club. TASS reports.

Ryabkov repeated that Moscow is not backing down “from key, doctrinal and political provisions.” He said that non-nuclear states, especially those that are not supporters of the United States, should “call to order politicians in Western capitals, including Washington, who have completely lost all sense of reality.”

President Vladimir Putin said he was suspending his country’s participation in the New Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States during his long-delayed annual address to the Federal Assembly last month.