MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. A change in the United States’ hostile policy towards Russia is a condition for the returning to the discussion of the New START, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

"The condition for returning to discussing the content of the treaty is a change in the hostile policy of the United States toward Russia," he said during the discussion entitled ‘A World without New START: What is Next?’ on the platform of the Valdai international discussion club.

As Ryabkov pointed out, the United States continued active hostile actions against Russia not only in Ukraine.

"Yes, of course, Ukraine and what is now happening there are the most blatant manifestations of Washington’s anti-Russian course aimed at escalation. But this country’s hostile actions against us are carried out practically in all spheres: from price caps and other measures to destroy the system of global economic relations in their interests to state-sponsored hostile actions in the IT sphere. Attacks on our respective resources continue - and these are just examples," he stressed.

"They should somehow come to their senses and <…> accept reality as it is. They continue to play with fire in the literal sense of the word. In this situation we can’t talk about any secret, open, direct or closed, and agreements on the ‘restoration’ of anything regarding the New START," the senior diplomat added.

At the same time, Ryabkov underscored that any possible compromise solutions on the New START that Washington may offer "are completely devoid of political sense" at the moment. "Legally speaking, we’ve suspended our participation in the treaty entirely without exceptions. If there had been any exceptions to the suspension, we would have said so and notified the Americans accordingly," he summarized.