US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he did not interpret his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s decision to temporarily suspend participation in the “New START” treaty to limit nuclear weapons as an indication of his thinking about using nuclear weapons, although he described the decision as a “big mistake.” .
“This is a big mistake,” Biden said during an interview with >. “It’s not a totally responsible decision, but I don’t interpret it to mean his thinking about using nuclear weapons or anything like that.”
A senior official in the Russian Ministry of Defense said that his country will abide by the agreed limits on nuclear missiles, and will continue to inform the United States of any change in its deployment, despite Moscow’s decision to suspend the last remaining arms control treaty.
Russia’s lower house (Duma) and upper house of parliament voted to suspend Moscow’s participation in the New START treaty, endorsing a decision announced by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday when he accused the West of trying to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Ukraine.
But a senior official in the Russian Ministry of Defense Yevgeny Ilin told the House of Representatives that Russia will continue to adhere to the agreed limits on the launch systems of nuclear weapons, ie strategic bombers and missiles.
Under the treaty concluded in 2010, Moscow and Washington are committed to deploying no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 missiles and bombers.
Each side can conduct up to 18 inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites each year, to ensure that the other party has not violated the treaty’s limits, but inspections under the treaty were suspended in March 2020 due to the “Covid-19” pandemic.