Moscow is continuing to rebuff efforts by President Joe Biden’s administration to revive nuclear arms control measures between the United States and Russia.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Biden administration’s current offers at a bilateral agreement to limit either country’s nuclear arsenals are “unacceptable” while the United States continues to arm Ukrainian forces currently fighting to repel Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country. Mr. Lavrov said his U.S. counterparts had suggested separating the issue of the war in Ukraine from the topic of nuclear arms control, but the Russian foreign minister rejected this framing.
Mr. Lavrov said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had provoked the ongoing war in Ukraine, and said the continued support of the Ukrainian side by the United States and its NATO allies “increased strategic risks and perils” for Russia. In particular, Mr. Lavrov accused NATO of encouraging Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes across its eastern border with Russia.
Ukrainian forces have indeed conducted numerous cross-border strikes inside Russia’s internationally recognized borders, as well as the Crimean Peninsula Russia annexed in 2014. Such Ukrainian strikes have intensified in recent weeks, including an attack on the southern Russian city of Belgorod that killed 25 people on Dec. 30.
“We do not see the slightest interest on the part of either the United States or NATO to settle the Ukrainian conflict and listen to Russia’s concerns,” Mr. Lavrov said, according to a translation of his remarks.
At the same time Mr. Lavrov accused the United States and NATO of provoking the Ukrainian war and increasing Russia’s strategic risks, he also suggested that what the West really hopes to achieve with new nuclear arms control measures is a chance “to enshrine its advantage” over the Russian side.
Mr. Lavrov’s comments on Thursday come after the virtual collapse of all U.S.–Russian nuclear arms agreements in recent years. Last February, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the last remaining bilateral arms control agreement, the 2010 New START Treaty.
It’s not entirely clear what efforts have been made to reapply nuclear arms control measures between the United States and Russia since the collapse of the Treaty.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced in June that the United States would be willing to engage in bilateral arms control discussions with Russia “without preconditions.” Mr. Sullivan then stressed “without preconditions” does not mean “without accountability” for “reckless behavior.” In those same remarks, Mr. Sullivan specifically accused Russia’s military of “recklessly” attacking the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine “with little concern for the potential catastrophic consequences of a nuclear incident.”
During his Thursday remarks, Mr. Lavrov noted that Ukrainian forces had attacked bases hosting Russian nuclear-capable bombers throughout the ongoing conflict.
Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said Russia’s decision to reject the U.S. offer to start new nuclear arms control talks runs afoul of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“Russia, like US, China, UK, France, has a legal obligation under the #NPT to ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,'” Mr. Kimball wrote in a post on the X social media platform on Thursday. “Saying ‘nyet’ with no counteroffer is unacceptable.”
While Russia suspended its formal participation in the New START treaty last year, it has agreed to uphold some nuclear safety measures articulated in the treaty, such as limits on the number of nuclear warheads it will possess, and would continue notifying the United States of missile launch tests.
In his June remarks, Mr. Sullivan said Russia’s continued willingness to maintain such security measures after suspending its participation in New START indicates Russia isn’t ready to completely abandon arms control efforts.
“It is in neither of our countries’ interests to embark on an open-ended competition in strategic nuclear forces—and we’re prepared to stick to the central limits as long as Russia does,” Mr. Sullivan said at the time.
Reuters contributed to this article.
