“The President of Russia ordered the temporary transfer of the deterrence forces to a special duty regime, which means the transition of shifts of strategic forces command posts to a reinforced duty,” the diplomat explained.
According to him, this implies increased vigilance, and not a state of high alert for strategic nuclear forces.
“These are completely different things,” Belousov emphasized.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said earlier that the risk of nuclear conflict due to geopolitical tensions is currently the highest in decades.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that the inadmissibility of nuclear war is Russia's principled position.