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Russia considers “unacceptable” the freeze on nuclear arsenals presented by the United States. The New Start bilateral treaty expires early next year.
The American announcement of the New Start was quickly followed by a cold shower from Moscow.
On Tuesday, Washington reported an “agreement in principle” with Moscow to extend the nuclear disarmament treaty.
“In fact, we are eager to extend the New Start treaty for a while, as long as Russia, in turn, agrees to limit – freeze – its nuclear arsenal,” said US negotiator Marshall Billingslea, who has led the month. June talks to Moscow about the New Start bilateral treaty, which expires early next year, shortly after the end of Donald Trump’s current term as the second candidate for the White House.
“We believe that there is an agreement in principle at the highest level of the two governments,” added the US diplomat at an online conference organized by the Heritage Foundation think-tank.
Not
The harsh response from Moscow came quickly. “Russia and the United States have not agreed to freeze nuclear arsenals,” the Russian permanent mission in Vienna wrote on Twitter.
Such a freeze would be “unacceptable” for Moscow, Moscow negotiator and deputy foreign minister Sergei Riabkov told Russian news agencies.
The bilateral New Start treaty, concluded in 2010, keeps the two countries’ arsenals well below their level during the Cold War, limiting the number of strategic nuclear launchers deployed to 700 and the number of nuclear warheads in these launchers to 1,550.
“If the Americans agree with the documents that we deliver and accept, an agreement of this type could be signed tomorrow. But under the conditions of such divergences, I cannot even imagine on what basis our colleagues in Washington make such hypotheses,” he specified Riabkov for the Ria Novosti agency.
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