Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the country’s temporary withdrawal from the New START Treaty
FILE PHOTO: Russian soldiers display the RS-24 Yars long-range nuclear missile during the annual Victory Day military parade. © Global Look Press via ZUMA Press / Kremlin Pool
Moscow is suspending its participation in the last remaining nuclear treaty between Russia and the US, President Vladimir Putin has announced. During his key address to the Russian parliament on Tuesday, he noted that Moscow will not exit the New START Treaty, but is temporarily withdrawing.
Explaining the decision, Putin stated that the agreement was initially drawn up under completely different circumstances, when Russia and the US did not perceive each other as adversaries. Now, however, according to the president, not only is the US issuing ultimatums to Russia, but NATO itself has essentially made an application to become part of the treaty as well.
The bloc members are now demanding an inspection of Russia’s strategic facilities, Putin said, noting that Moscow’s requests to inspect Western nuclear facilities under the treaty are systematically denied with only formal explanations for the rejection.
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Putin noted that the US has continued to insist on maintaining hegemony, while its NATO partners openly admit that they want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
“Russia cannot ignore this. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore this,” he said.
Before we return to discussing this agreement, we must understand for ourselves what the intentions of countries like France and the UK are and how we will consider their strategic arsenals as well, which is the cumulative striking potential of NATO.
The New START Treaty was originally signed in 2010 by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, and aimed to cut in half the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers deployed around the world. Under the treaty, both countries were supposed to allow the other side a limited number of inspections per year to verify compliance with the agreement. Unless extended, the treaty was set to expire in 2026.
