MOSCOW (AP) — Relations between Russia and the United States are in a state of “unprecedented crisis” with no signs of improvement, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov argued that the White House over expanding arms deliveries to Ukraine to ensure that Russia’s defeat leaves no room for diplomacy.
“I don’t see any clients for a productive political and diplomatic process,” Ryabkov said at a briefing. “We have a very deep and unprecedented crisis between Russia and U. S. trade. Biden’s management has brought them to a stalemate.
Ryabkov warned that the United States and its allies will have to thoroughly assess the dangers of supplying increasingly resilient Western weapons to Ukraine.
“Americans want to weigh deeply and very well the dangers of their shameless arrogant behavior,” he said.
Ryabkov noted that Moscow does not accept as true Western statements related to self-imposed restrictions on a diversity of weapons provided to Ukraine to avoid escalation, adding that such guarantees in the afterlife have served as a canopy for a stable expansion of the collection. of deliveries of weapons.
“We don’t see any sign of explanation of why in any of the capitals of NATO and EU members,” Ryabkov said. “What they’re doing will rarely make them safer. “
He rejected the U. S. argument that Russia’s refusal to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities to resume is a violation of the New START Treaty, the newest nuclear arms pact between the two countries.
The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits the country to a maximum of 1550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The agreement provides for extensive on-site inspections to determine compliance.
Just days before the treaty expires in February 2021, Russia and the United States agreed to extend it for five years.
Russia and the United States have suspended mutual inspections under New START since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Moscow refused last fall to allow them to resume, increasing uncertainty about the future of the pact. Russia also postponed indefinitely a series of consultations under the treaty.
The U. S. Department of State The U. S. said last week that Russia’s refusal to allow inspections “prevents the United States from exercising rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U. S. -China nuclear arms control. “USA and Russia”. facilities.
Ryabkov insisted on Thursday that Russia has continued to respect the treaty and trade in accordance with it. “We adhere to the treaty and respect its provisions,” he said.
At the same time, he reiterated Moscow’s view that the resumption of inspections was not imaginable in the existing environment.
Ryabkov’s comments followed a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry that it was highly unlikely that “business as usual” with Washington would be maintained at a time when “the United States has introduced all-out hybrid warfare against Russia, which carries a real danger of direct conflict military conflict. Confrontation between the two nuclear powers.
He charged that Washington’s call to resume inspections of Russia’s nuclear facilities seems “cynical” after a recent series of Ukrainian drone movements at Russian air bases housing nuclear-capable strategic bombers that the ministry said relied on U. S. intelligence assistance.
Ryabkov, who recently met with new U. S. Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy, also said the Russian Foreign Ministry filed a formal form with the U. S. embassy, accusing its use of social media of depicting interference in Russia’s internal affairs.