The Russian Foreign Ministry charged in a statement issued yesterday that the U.S. has been “flagrantly” violating the New START treaty for years. The U.S. has said it has denuclearized a portion of the B-52 fleet and taken 4 launch tubes on each Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine out of service in order to comply with the limits in the treaty, but Moscow has been complaining that its inspectors were not able to verify that these changes are still in place. ”Of vital importance for assessing compliance with New START is the fact that Washington has long been substantially violating the fundamental provisions of the Treaty on the quantitative restrictions of the parties’ relevant armaments,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, the United States’ attempts to probe into the defense of a number of Russian facilities falling under the New START treaty by means of backing Kiev’s attacks on them have become blatantly provocative and risky. “In addition, the United States undertook clearly provocative and extremely dangerous attempts to probe the protection of several Russian facilities included in the Treaty. The armed attacks on them, which the puppet regime in Kiev launched, were organized with Washington’s obvious military-technical and intelligence assistance,” it said.
