MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/. Moscow and Washington should achieve agreement in the near future on drafting a substitute for the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on the Great Game talk show on Russia’s Channel One.
"It’s an open secret that for Russia it would be the best option to agree with Washington in the near future we should get down to drafting a treaty that would replace the existing New START. Also, we should figure out the scope of a future document," he said.
"It goes without saying that it would be extremely important for us to prevent the slide into a missile crisis in the situation that is taking shape in the light of the deployment of US weapons of intermediate and shorter range in Europe, even though not armed with nuclear warheads if Washington and Brussels are to be believed," he added.
Before the third round of strategic stability consultations between Russia and the United States, there would be several meetings of two working groups.
"As far as strategic stability is concerned, the inter-departmental format, all key organizations on both sides, military ones in the first place, as well as the US and our own nuclear segment, will be represented at these consultations. We hope that this will happen within several weeks to come. I do not think that it will take place before this year is out, but we cannot afford to postpone this far beyond the beginning of 2022. There will be a third round in this format. Meetings of two working groups will precede it. We have been working on their agenda in the most intensive way."
Ryabkov hopes that as the United States moves towards finalizing a review of its own nuclear policy, this issue will become part and parcel of the content of bilateral discussions and the two sides will be able to say with greater certainty what the ultimate aim of their efforts and the final product of their dialogue will be.
Russia and the United States signed the New START treaty in 2010. On February 3, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US embassy in Moscow exchanged notes to inform each other on the completion of internal procedures necessary for effecting the agreement to prolong the New START treaty by five years.