Moscow (EFE).- Russia responded today to the United States that the “countermeasures” it announced this week due to the Kremlin’s decision to abandon START III or New START will not make it comply with said disarmament treaty, within the framework of the war of Ukraine.
“Regardless of any measure or countermeasure on the part of the United States, our decision to suspend START is irrevocable,” Sergei Riabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, said today, according to the Interfax agency.
He stressed that Moscow’s condition for the full implementation of the treaty remains “the renunciation by the US of its fundamentally hostile policy towards Russia.”
Riabkov admitted that the US decision to stop complying with START III did not come as a surprise to Moscow, as Washington had previously informed him. “Although it is true that they did it in what has been their usual way lately, setting conditions. In the style that you must do something, then there will be no such measures, ”he explained.
Control is already “extremely sharp”
The senior Russian official warned that the arms control situation “is already extremely acute.”
“And because of the US, many elements of the previous architecture in this field have been totally destroyed or placed in a state of semi-sleep,” he asserted.
Of course, he stressed that the US did commit to continue complying with the 1988 agreement on Reciprocal Notification of Major Strategic Exercises regarding the launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missiles launched from atomic submarines.
“Within the framework of this agreement, some procedures are maintained, as is the case on our part. As a consequence, a certain transparency and predictability is maintained in this area, which will allow us to avoid new and dangerous escalations”, he highlighted.
countermeasures
The first of the countermeasures announced this Thursday by the United States is that it will not send Russia the update of its data on nuclear facilities and forces to which it was obliged in March and also suspends the notifications to which it was obliged on the location of material military like missiles or shuttles.
From now on, Washington will also not allow inspection activities in its territory and will revoke the visas of the inspectors attached to the treaty and the members of the crews of said inspection, and will deny the visas that are underway.
In the same way, it will revoke the diplomatic permission that the Russian inspection planes have and will not provide telemetric information about its shuttles.
Russia already refused to publish its number of nuclear warheads
In mid-May, Russia already rejected the possibility of publishing the number of nuclear warheads after also denouncing the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21 the suspension of his country’s compliance with START III, although he qualified that Russia is not abandoning the pact, but merely suspending it because of the US and Washington’s hostile attitude. , which supports Ukraine with weapons and financing.
The treaty, signed in 2010 by the then US and Russian presidents, Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev, also restricts the number of vehicles and launch systems that can be deployed or in reserve, but its fundamental part is the verification regime that the document establishes to ensure that those limits are met.
