Russia says it's still in contact with US over nuclear treaty, but prospects dim

[March 10, 2023]   (Reuters) -Russia said on Friday it was still in contact with the United States over their last remaining nuclear arms treaty, despite suspending it last month, but held out little prospect of returning to it.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland March 2, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by RIA news agency as saying he had no expectations for significant progress from contacts between Moscow and Washington over the New START treaty.

The 2010 agreement limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads each side can deploy. President Vladimir Putin announced last month that Moscow was suspending it, accusing the U.S. of trying to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia in Ukraine.

"A hypothetical opportunity to return to this whole subject can arise only when and if Washington reconsiders its destructive escalation course towards the Russian Federation, which in every aspect is unacceptable and destructive for what you might call the remnants of our relations between Moscow and Washington," Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

Russia has said it will stick to the treaty's numerical limits on warheads, but Ryabkov ruled out a resumption of the mutual inspections that the treaty provides for, saying that was "impossible".

New START is the only surviving nuclear arms pact between the two countries, successor to a series of deals dating back to the 1970s that halted the Cold War arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Security analysts say the collapse of the deal - or a failure to renew it when it expires in 2026 - would increase nuclear risks at a time of heightened confrontation between Moscow and Washington over Russia's war in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Alex Richardson)

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