“Russia has said it is ready for a new reality of a world without limits on nuclear weapons after the NPT-3 treaty expires this week.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Sergey Ryabkov. Photo from Russian mass media Source: “European Truth”, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Ryabkov, quoted by “Kommersant”
Details: If the U.S. and Russia fail to reach an agreement at the last minute, after the JNF-3 treaty expires on Thursday, they will be left without any restrictions on their long-range strategic nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than half a century.
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Ryabkov assured that Russia is ready for a new reality in which there will be no restrictions in the field of weapons.
“We calculated, assumed that this could happen, there is nothing unexpected in this, and we also see no reason for any dramatization of events,” he said at a meeting with journalists at the Russian Embassy in China.
At the same time, Ryabkov specified that a dialogue on strategic stability is impossible without a change in Washington’s foreign policy towards Moscow.
“We need far-reaching shifts, changes for the better in the approach of the US as a whole to relations with us,” Ryabkov noted.
In a commentary for the New York Times last month, US President Donald Trump indicated that he would allow the treaty to lapse. However, he said that a “better deal” must be made.
The network of agreements made after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to reduce the threat of nuclear war is gradually unraveling, and confrontations between Moscow and the West over Ukraine and US concerns about China are intensifying.
The US has invited China to join the arms control talks. Beijing shows no desire to do so.
Ryabkov said that China has a clear position on arms control and that Moscow respects it.
In February 2023, Vladimir Putin announced a “suspension” Russia’s participation in the SNO-3 Treaty – although the document does not provide for such a mechanism, this step took place against the background of Moscow’s nuclear blackmail of the West. At the same time, the Russian Federation remained a party to the agreement.