Russian MFA Information and Press Department Commentary Regarding US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ Remarks on the Security of Nuclear Weapons in Russia

Question: Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment on October 28, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expressed concern over the security of Russia's nuclear arsenals. How well grounded is that statement?

Commentary: We are acquainted with Robert Gates' remarks on this score. It is not the first time that the American side has publicly said that in the 1990s considerable stocks of Russian nuclear weapons were supposedly lost or stolen.

Such insinuations have no foundations beneath them. Despite all the difficulties our country faced in the beginning of the 1990s, standards of security and physical protection of Russian nuclear arsenals remained high. There have been no "leaks" of nuclear weapons.

I would like to recall in this connection that the statement adopted in February 2005 in Bratislava by the leaders of Russia and the US on security in the nuclear sphere recorded an understanding that both in Russia and the US the protection of nuclear sites meets contemporary requirements. Evidently, against the background of its own failure in terms of security of nuclear arsenals Washington has preferred to "forget" about this document.

Question: A few days ago Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwartzenberg, speaking in the lower house of parliament at the hearings on ratification of the Czech-American agreements on the deployment of a US missile defense system radar station in the Czech Republic, accused Russia of scheming to create a "neutral zone" in Eastern Europe which would prevent the extension to this region of classic security guarantees provided by western defense structures. How could you comment on this statement?

Commentary: It is not the first time that we have encountered such conjectures of Karel Schwartzenberg and a number of other Czech politicians. The statements of this kind are calculated for domestic consumption and are designed to convince the majority of Czechs who still doubt the advisability of deploying the American radar on their territory of the necessity of creating a new "shield" as a counterweight to imaginary Russian threats.

These inventions evoke nothing but regret. Hearing them, you only become convinced that certain members of the Czech political elite still remain captive to the schemes and assumptions of the times long past of the confrontation of the two systems, persistently trying to create in the eyes of their own population the image of an "external enemy" in the person of Moscow. Such an approach has nothing in common with the policy of contemporary Russia and does not correspond to the spirit of the principles declared in Russian-Czech relations of partnership and consideration of the interests of each other with a view to developing cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of both countries.

October 31, 2008