Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko [told Izvestia](https://en.iz.ru/en/1984411/kirill-fenin/russia-and-united-states-are-still-able-find-ways-maintain-strategic-stability in an exclusive interview on Nov. 5 that any new discussions on nuclear disarmament must include France and Great Britain, as Russia is taking into account NATO’s combined nuclear potential. If such talks were to take place, Grushko said, there could then be discussions on the intermediate and short-range nuclear weapons. He noted that President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend the restrictions of New START Treaty one more year was not an invitation to the United States to immediately launch negotiations, but that implementing it could create an atmosphere conducive to substantive strategic dialogue with the United States. However, the process of establishing conditions for a full-scale resumption of such a dialogue requires consideration of the entire range of efforts to normalize bilateral relations and resolve fundamental security differences.
Grushko said: “We are convinced that Russia and the United States are still able to find ways and methods to maintain strategic stability when interacting in a bilateral format. At the same time, in any potential dialogue of this kind, we have to take into account the factor of the combined nuclear potential of the NATO countries. If a substantive dialogue on further reduction of nuclear arsenals is launched in the future without the involvement of Great Britain and France, things will definitely not move forward.”
He also warned, “At the moment, the reverse process is taking place. In particular, American special munitions are returning to the territory of Great Britain for the tasks of extremely destabilizing ‘joint nuclear missions’ of NATO. This once again confirms the validity of the Russian position that it is impossible to ignore the combined potential of the North Atlantic bloc, which, let me remind you, has self-proclaimed itself a “nuclear alliance.”
