Russia declares implementation of nuclear treaty despite suspension
2023.02.22 09:59
Russia declares implementation of nuclear treaty despite suspension
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – Despite the “suspension” of its last remaining arms control treaty with Washington, a senior defense official stated on Wednesday that Russia will continue to inform the United States of any changes to its deployments and adhere to agreed-upon limits on nuclear missiles.
Russia’s parliament quickly approved suspending Moscow’s participation in the New START treaty, confirming President Vladimir Putin’s claim on Tuesday that the West was attempting to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
But Major-General Yevgeny Ilyin, a top official in the defense ministry, told the lower house, or Duma, that Russia would continue to adhere to agreed-upon limits on nuclear delivery systems like strategic bomber planes and missiles.
Ilyin was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying that it would continue to notify Washington of nuclear deployments to “prevent false alarms, which is important for maintaining strategic stability.”
Even if it casts doubt on the long-term future of a treaty designed to reduce nuclear risk by providing a degree of transparency and predictability to both sides, the assurances suggested that Putin’s move would have little immediate practical impact.
The head of the Kremlin has a long history of trying to start the West off wrong and shake it up. Since attacking Ukraine a year prior, he has more than once flaunted about Russia’s atomic weapons store and said he might want to utilize it on the off chance that the country’s “regional trustworthiness” is undermined.
Each nation is limited to 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 missiles and heavy bombers under the 2010 New START treaty, which Russia has said it will continue to observe.
Security experts say that if it fails to be replaced when it expires in 2026, or if it collapses, it could start a new arms race at a dangerous time when Putin is portraying the war in Ukraine as a direct confrontation with the West.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, responded to the question of when Russia would revisit the agreement, saying, Everything will depend on the West’s position… The situation will change if they are willing to consider our concerns.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, as reported by Interfax, stated: Naturally, we will keep a close eye on the United States and its allies’ subsequent actions, including with the intention of taking any necessary additional countermeasures.”
Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying in response to a CNN report that Russia had unsuccessfully tested its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this week. This weapon is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. Even if CNN is the source, nothing you read in the media can be trusted.
Although visits had been halted since 2020 due to COVID and the Ukraine war, the suspended treaty gives each side the right to inspect the other’s sites and requires the parties to provide detailed notifications on the numbers, locations, and technical characteristics of their strategic nuclear weapons.
When a production facility is about to transport an intercontinental ballistic missile, for instance, each must inform the other. Since the treaty’s implementation in 2011, the U.S. State Department claims that the parties have exchanged more than 25,000 notifications.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Russia’s reported suspension was “profoundly appalling and flighty”. Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, stated that it made the world more dangerous and urged Vladimir Putin to reconsider.
After more than half a century of bilateral nuclear treaties with Moscow, Russia is now demanding that British and French nuclear weapons aimed at Russia be included in the arms control framework. Washington views this as a non-starter.
