Russia rules out unilateral concessions to sign a new disarmament treaty with the US

Russia will not make unilateral concessions in order to sign a new nuclear disarmament treaty with the United States, replacing START IIIwhich expired last week, declared this Friday the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov.

“If our (American) colleagues hope to reach an agreement with us on something different and on different bases, they are very wrong. Any unilateral concession on our part is simply unthinkable, especially now,” the number two in Russian diplomacy told the TASS agency.

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At the same time, he assured that Moscow does not know at the moment what the position of the Donald Trump Administration in the negotiations on that matter.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated this week that Russia will respect the limits contemplated by the START III treaty, as long as the United States does the same.

The Treaty signed by the then Russian presidents, Dmitri Medvedev, and American presidents, Barack Obama, on April 8, 2010 in Prague and renewed in February 2021 for another five years, establishes the following limits: a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 ballistic systems on land, sea or air.

Last week Lavrov warned that “a vacuum has emerged” in matters of disarmament with expiration of STARTalthough he added that “Russia prefers dialogue” to guarantee strategic stability with the signing of a new treaty.

US President Donald Trump wants China – which already has more than half a thousand nuclear warheads – to participate in the upcoming disarmament negotiations, while Moscow says it respects Beijing’s position and also demands participation in the future treaty between France and the United Kingdom.