Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took note of the remarks on Russia made by Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea which were published by the National Institute for Public Policy on Dec. 8. “The U.S. refusal to accept the Russian proposal (on reaffirming the Reagan-Gorbachev statement on nuclear war) seems hardly surprising against the background of Washington’s line of reducing the nuclear threshold and its active implementation of military programs highlighting the dangerous and absurd U.S. intention to wage a nuclear war and to win in nuclear conflicts. The references to a reluctance to believe in Russia’s sincerity look like a miserable attempt to justify, to at least some extent, the U.S. administration’s unconstructive line in matters of international security and stability, which has, in effect, become its trademark,” she said in a Dec. 10 statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.