MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. Russia refuses to engage with Washington on arms control in any way due to the US’ destructive stance, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with The International Affairs journal.

"We do not have the foundation right now and we are not even close to shaping one in order to launch a tentative dialogue, not talks even, in this field. This is a result of Washington’s destructive policy course," the senior diplomat stressed. He added that Moscow cannot hold dialogue on arms control with a country that officially wants to deliver a strategic defeat on Russia.

He noted that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires soon. Ryabkov pointed out that this agreement had been suspended but the Russian side is observing its central quantitative restrictions on warheads and carriers.

"Probably, the Americans would like to begin talks about what’s next but, until they clearly show some change for the better in their policy, at the very least, demonstrate that this boundless and unabashed Russophobia has been set aside and is replaced with a slightly more sane approach and something more useful begins to happen in our relations, until this happens, there simply can be no dialogue on strategic stability," the Russian deputy foreign minister concluded.

Situation with strategic treaties

On February 21, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to suspend Russia’s participation in New START without withdrawing from it. The president stressed that, before discussing resuming any work under the treaty, Moscow must understand for itself how New START would factor in the nuclear arsenals not only of the United States, but also those of other nuclear powers in NATO, such as the UK and France. On February 28, 2023, Putin signed a law suspending Russia’s participation in the New START Treaty.

After the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, Russia pledged that it would refrain from manufacturing and deploying such systems as long as the United States refuses to deploy them in any part of the world.

Now, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it became known that not only the US is producing these missiles but has already deployed them in Europe and the Philippines. Currently, Russia is working on response measures, not ruling out that it will also begin manufacturing and deploying the missiles.