Set up in 1963, Russia-US hotline goes cold

KABUL (Pajhwok): As the Ukraine conflict escalates, a hotline between Russian and American leaders is currently not being used, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday.

President Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov made the announcement hours after Ukraine fired US-supplied missiles into Russia.

The special hotline had been established for crisis-defusing conversations between the Soviet and American leaders after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Peskov has told TASS news agency the channel of communication had gone out of use: “We now have a special protected communication channel for the two presidents.”

But of late, Peskov explained, there had been no contacts via the new channel, involving the video call facility. The presidents last spoke by phone in early 2022.

According to TASS, the hotline — created for emergency talks between the leaders of the USSR and the United States –started operating on August 30, 1963.

A day earlier, Ukraine fired US ATACMS missiles at a military facility inside Russia after authorisation from US President Joe Biden.

PAN Monitor/mud

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