Attacks on nuclear sites becoming normalized: Mikhail Ulyanov

Speaking at the IAEA General Conference, Mikhail Ulyanov said Russia had warned that if IAEA member states and the agency’s leadership do not find the resolve to condemn attacks on nuclear facilities “anywhere, at any time,” such attacks would become a new norm. “It appears this is exactly what is happening,” he said.

According to Russia’s Novosti news agency, Ulyanov added that Moscow wants the agency to respond to attacks on nuclear facilities, particularly those under IAEA safeguards.

Separately, Vladislav Maslennikov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s European Cooperation Department, told a press briefing that Western countries’ “playing” with nuclear weapons is a particular concern and portends a troubling outlook.

For decades, he said, the Baltic Sea had been a stable and peaceful region. But once NATO decided to deploy there — or rather, once its member states decided they needed to strengthen their defenses in the Baltic — the region ceased to be the stable, peaceful area it once was.

Maslennikov said the efforts of Russia’s “Western neighbors” to play with nuclear weapons are a particular source of concern in this context. He pointed to Finland’s recent decision to join France’s nuclear deterrence initiative as a development that has added to the situation, following Helsinki’s move this past summer to lift restrictions on nuclear weapons imports.

Noting that Moscow is the only Arctic Council member that does not belong to NATO, Maslennikov said such an “erosive” trend in non-proliferation policy, and deliberate actions to weaken it further, can only be described as “utterly reckless and highly dangerous.” He added that the EU, through successive rounds of sanctions that are illegal under international law, is creating further obstacles to the development of the Russian Arctic and to international cooperation in the north.

MNA