MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. Russia will not tolerate Washington’s refusal to count a number of US strategic delivery vehicles under the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Lenta.ru in an interview.

"Also, we should address the issue of the United States’ far-fetched refusal to count a certain number of its strategic delivery vehicles. They were described as reconfigured and removed from the total count. That the New START has been prolonged by five years does not mean that we are prepared to leave this problem unnoticed and turn a blind eye on it," he stressed.

The senior diplomat said that Russia was unable to verify on its own if it was true the US strategic delivery vehicles had been reconfigured, which created a so-called additional "upload potential."

"We discussed that at length with the previous administration," Ryabkov recalled.

He stressed that whenever the issue of strategic stability and considerable amounts of nuclear weapons were on the agenda, only balanced and responsible decisions must be made.

"When there are tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in stock, then hypothetically it might be possible to say: several warheads more, or several warheads less makes no difference. But when the warheads number hundreds, then the situation is very different. In this particular case, we are obliged to display greater responsibility, and this is precisely what we have been calling our US counterparts for," Ryabkov concluded.

Russia and the United States signed the New START treaty in 2010. On February 3, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US embassy exchanged notes confirming the completion of internal procedures required for the treaty’s prolongation to take effect. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the treaty’s prolongation ensured the preservation and further functioning of the crucial mechanism of maintaining strategic stability, which limits the signatories’ nuclear missile potentials on the basis of strict parity.