Russia has violated a major nuclear arms control agreement with the United States and continues to refuse inspections of its nuclear facilities, a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
“Russia has not complied with its obligations under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities in its territory. It impedes the exercise of the right to exercise such rights and threatens the viability of nuclear arms control between the United States and Russia,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Russia has also failed to comply with its New START obligation to convene a bilateral consultative committee session according to the treaty-mandated timeline,” the spokesperson added.
Under the New START Treaty, the only agreement left to regulate the world’s two largest nuclear weapons, Washington and Moscow are allowed to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites, but Covid-19 Inspections have been suspended from 2020 due to the pandemic.
A session of the Bilateral Consultative Committee on the Convention, scheduled for late November in Egypt, was abruptly canceled. The United States has blamed Russia for the delay, with a State Department spokesperson saying the decision was made “unilaterally” by Russia.
The treaty places limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the United States and Russia can possess. That was extended for five years in early 2021, which means the two sides will need to start negotiating another arms control agreement soon.
The State Department said Russia could return to full compliance if it “allowed inspection activities in its territory as it has for many years under the New START Treaty” and scheduled a session of the Commission. says.
On Monday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the last remaining element of a bilateral nuclear disarmament treaty with the United States could expire in three years without replacement.
Asked if the Russian government can imagine no nuclear weapons control agreement between the two countries when the 2011 New START Treaty extension ends after 2026, Ryabkov told Russian state news agency RIA on Monday told Novosti: scenario. “
This statement was made at a time when Russia continued its war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last December that the threat of nuclear war was “growing” and admitted that the conflict would “take some time”. Putin said he never categorically denied the first use of nuclear weapons and viewed Russia’s nuclear arsenal as a deterrent rather than a provocation.