Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian legislature’s international affairs committee, said Mr Putin’s proposal would remove pressure from the pre-election politics in the United States before the arms talks could end.
The Trump administration is preparing to agree to a five-year extension without research, an option that would not require Senate approval. Mr. Trump has found it unacceptable because the treaty reached by President Obama does not include all of Russia’s nuclear weapons, or any of China’s.
China, however, has refused to join any modified version of New Start, arguing that its nuclear arsenal is smaller than that of the United States or Russia.
Despite being keen to save New Start, Russia has shown little interest in giving President Trump a foreign policy victory less than three weeks before the United States presidential election, indicating that he expects Mr. Biden to win. Senior Russian officials this week condemned claims by Mr. Trump’s chief negotiator, Marshall Billingsia, to extend the treaty to “agreement in principle, at the highest level of both our governments.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov called this a fantasy. Russia’s chief negotiator, Mr Ryabkov, said in a statement that “Washington describes what is desired, not what is real.”
Russia’s perceived deal is an open joke, however, as Moscow appears to be churlish and risks risking Mr Putin’s long-running efforts to present his country as deeply committed to arms control – unlike the United States, which has strayed from many agreements. The past.
In Mr Putin’s proposal on Friday, Dmitry Train, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and a foreign policy analyst abroad, said this week’s controversy suggested an attempt to tarnish Russia’s image, which he accepted with more than a real chance.
