MOSCOW, August 1. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden’s statement that the United States is ready to negotiate a new arms control system with Russia may be simply a diversionary tactic, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Monday.

"I think that Biden might have said it either as a diversionary tactic, bearing in mind thee absolutely bad relations between our countries, or he did not think it over well enough. So far, I don’t see anything serious in this statement," Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council, or upper parliament house, told TASS.

He noted that it is not practiced in diplomacy to announce these or those steps without preliminary work on the corresponding matter, which typically begin with consultations between foreign ministries followed by a telephone call between the leader. "Because it looks not very good to say he is ready without having an answer from our president. Such things are pronounced when the person saying it knows that the other side has a principled decision to support such an idea. But, they first speak out, which is not the first such case, and then no one knows where we are moving to. That is why, I would rather refrain from taking it seriously," he added.

The lawmaker said he hopes that some day the US leader will see that "the situation is in utter dead end and will begin to look for a way out of it, speaking with his opponents both in China and in Moscow." "So far, I don’t think the situation is ripe for that. The Americans are too active in Ukraine and are behaving too negatively on the global arena in general, constantly calling on countries for boycotting Russia. It cannot indicate that they are ready for constructive cooperation," he said.

"So far, I think they are shy sprouts. Let us wait and see if they grow later," he added.

In his statement for the Tenth Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Biden said that Washington is ready "to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026," but Moscow "should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States." He also said that arms control talks should involve China.