US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Washington has established contacts with Russia to reduce the risks of using nuclear weapons.
“We have had the opportunity to engage with Russia at a high level to reduce the risk of using nuclear weapons and informing Moscow of the consequences of their use,” Sullivan said during a Council on Foreign Relations seminar in Washington on Monday.
He added: “We did not disclose the channels through which communication was carried out in order to protect them.”
This came in response to a report in The Wall Street Journal that Sullivan had made covert contacts in recent months with Russian presidential aide for international affairs Yuri Ushakov and Russian National Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
The Kremlin did not confirm the accuracy of the information contained in the report, and the White House declined to comment.
Source: RIA Novosti