Russia suspends participation in the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, START-III), Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his Address to the Federal Assembly on February 21.
"They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and they encroach on our nuclear facilities. In this regard, I have to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty,” Putin said.
Russia is not pulling out of the treaty, but suspending its participation in it, Putin clarified. For further cooperation within the framework of the treaty Moscow needs to understand how exactly NATO's total nuclear arsenal will be taken into account, Putin added.
Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that resuming inspections under the START treaty was not yet possible. According to him, it is difficult to imagine officers of the US Armed Forces inspecting Russian military facilities as they (officers — ed.) represent a party to the conflict in Ukraine.
START, or START III, is a treaty between Russia and the United States that came into force in 2010. The two countries undertook to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, 1,550 warheads and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers.