If Russia is attacked, it will act "according the situation". This was stated by the head of the Russian delegation at the OSCE Forum on Military Security and Arms Control in Vienna, Konstantin Gavrilov. The text of the speech was published on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry, reports TASS.
"At the doctrinal level, we deliberately maintain the necessary uncertainty about the scale of our possible nuclear response to aggression. The potential aggressor must understand that in the event of an attack on Russia, we reserve the right to act, as they say, "according to the situation" and use all our appropriate opportunities," the diplomat said.
"Russia has drawn ``red lines'' that we advise no one to cross, if the enemy decides to do so, the response can be truly devastating,'' he stressed.
The Russian Federation, according to Gavrilov, will report in this regard "the aggressive actions of the USA and its allies in the North Atlantic Alliance, which it observes against the background of many alarming changes in their military and doctrinal policy, including its nuclear component."
"We would like to declare with full responsibility that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons exclusively in response to the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation using conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is at stake," he said.
Russia, as the diplomat noted, is now "opposed not only to a nationalist regime, but to a coordinated collective West that is instrumentalizing Ukraine to wage a new type of hybrid war against Russia.
"It is not surprising that with the accumulated combat experience, the armed forces of the Russian Federation are rightfully in the echelon of the most combat-capable and experienced armies in the world," Gavrilov concluded.