Moscow wants to continue disarmament talks with Washington

Russia has spoken out in favor of a rapid resumption of disarmament talks with the USA. “Of course we are interested in this negotiation process starting as quickly as possible,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. He complained that many arms control treaties had been terminated in recent years. According to him, the blame for this lay with the USA.

Peskov emphasized that nuclear disarmament is in the interests of the entire world and all peoples. Russia is interested, but now the ball is in the USA’s court. In such negotiations, not only the nuclear potential of the Russians and Americans, but also that of the French and British must be taken into account, he demanded. However, he said nothing about the participation of China, a nuclear power that is friendly with Russia, in future disarmament talks.

In recent years there have been changes and withdrawals from several disarmament treaties. In 2019, the USA under then-President Donald Trump terminated the INF Treaty to abandon land-based short- and medium-range nuclear missiles. Washington justified the move by saying that Russia had developed a new land-based medium-range cruise missile system and was equipping its armed forces with it.

In 2020, the USA also announced under Trump that it would withdraw from the Open Skies treaty on international military observation flights. Russia then also announced its withdrawal.

In 2022, Putin completed Russia’s withdrawal from the Disarmament Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty) and suspended the last major nuclear disarmament treaty, New Start, with the USA.

At the same time, the Kremlin once again made it clear that it was also interested in negotiating with Trump about an end to the Ukraine war. However, a reduction in oil prices – as Trump previously suggested – will not make Russia give in.

“This conflict does not depend on the price of oil,” but rather is about Russia’s national security and the security of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, said Peskov. Under this pretext, Moscow has been waging a brutal war of aggression for almost three years now and has annexed large parts of neighboring Ukraine.