The White House does not believe the Ukrainian conflict will lead to a nuclear war, said Rose Gottenmoeller, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for the US State Department.
"We don't think the Ukrainian conflict is a nuclear crisis," Gottenmoeller told Russian daily Kommersant in an interview.
She also added that Russia and the United States have a stable relationship when it comes to nuclear issues. Despite differences of opinion regarding the Ukrainian conflict, the two countries have no desire to use their nuclear arsenals to back up their arguments, Gottenmoeller said.
The pragmatic implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) continues. Over the last 50 years, the United States and Russia have taken numerous steps aimed at the reduction of nuclear weapons and building stable relationships in nuclear affairs, the high-ranking US official said.
Certain individuals, such as Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, keep spreading the fear of a nuclear crisis by building tension between the two super powers. Earlier on Wednesday while visiting France, Yatsenyuk said that Ukraine and Russia were on the verge of a nuclear war.
Speaking about how the Ukrainian crisis could trigger a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the United States, Gottenmoeller reiterated that it is not going to happen. There are now plenty of crises in the world that involve the use of conventional weapons, but a nuclear crisis is a completely different situation, Gottenmoeller assured, adding that the world is still very far from a nuclear crisis.
