MOSCOW, 8 Feb. The US demands to resume inspections under the New START look especially cynical given that the Kyiv regime, with Washington's clear military-technical and informational assistance, tried to hit strategic targets, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
«The United States has essentially unleashed an all-out hybrid war against Russia, which is fraught with a real danger of a direct military clash between the two nuclear powers,» the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
«Against this background, Washington's demands to ensure, no matter what, the resumption of inspection activities at Russian strategic offensive arms facilities are frankly cynical, especially in the conditions when the Kyiv regime tried to strike at them with obvious military-technical and information and intelligence assistance from the United States,» emphasized in the ministry.
Moscow noted that «Washington's aggressive course with the openly declared goal of inflicting a «strategic defeat» on Russia in Ukraine, where weapons are pumped in increasing volumes and instructors/mercenaries/military personnel from the United States and other NATO member countries are sent, as well as confrontation in all areas of bilateral interstate cooperation by the current American administration, make it impossible to conduct business «as usual».
The Russian Foreign Ministry also noted that «standard inspection procedures were violated precisely by the actions of the American side,» since as a result of the anti-Russian restrictions imposed by Washington, they blocked the possibility of the Russian Federation for unimpeded inspections on US territory, which created obvious unilateral advantages for the American side.
«The desire of the United States to undisclosedly resume inspection activities on Russian territory under such conditions forced us to temporarily withdraw our strategic facilities from the inspection regime under the Treaty, which is provided for by its relevant provisions. These measures do not contradict the START. Their goal is to ensure the smooth functioning of all treaty mechanisms in strict accordance with the principles of parity and equality of the parties, which were called into question by the actions of the United States,» the Foreign Ministry explained.
«We do not intend to leave without a proper response the hostile actions of the United States, which call into question the relevance of a number of the most important provisions of the START Treaty. We remind you that this Treaty was concluded in fundamentally different political realities and was part of a political process of a completely different direction, which was fully reflected in its preamble, which is an integral part of the Treaty,» the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The preamble, in particular, says that the parties «are working to strengthen new strategic relations based on mutual trust, openness, predictability and cooperation,» «are guided by the principle of indivisible security» and «strive to further reduce the role and importance of nuclear weapons.»
«We are forced to state that the US policy is diametrically opposed to all these goals,» the Russian Foreign Ministry noted.
In addition, the The Foreign Ministry pointed out that «Washington has been stubbornly building up» missile defense systems for many years, «in contrary to the clear and unambiguous objections of the Russian side», although in the context of signing and ratifying the START, Russia «made a statement on missile defense, which explicitly states that the Treaty can operate and be viable only in conditions where there is no qualitative and quantitative build-up of US missile defense systems» .