MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Moscow is alarmed by the United States' plans to develop low-yield nuclear warheads for deterring Russia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
"We are alarmed by the trend growing in the U.S. toward a lightweight and loose handling of terms related to strategic stability, which implies that no preconditions for using nuclear weapons first can be allowed to arise," Ryabkov told journalists in reply to a relevant question in Moscow.
"The development and possible deployment of low-yield or variable-yield warheads, including on Trident-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles" reveals "an evolution of U.S. military thought that may allow for a scenario of battlefield use of nuclear weapons," he said.