Maria Zakharova
Moscow: The US-Russia face-off continues with Moscow accusing Washington of spreading “unsubstantiated concoctions” against Kremlin in a report published on April 15, 2021 by the US Department of State.
The report ‘2021 Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments‘, Russia claimed, lacked any conclusive evidence, and disseminated “blatantly” false accusations, and suppressed Washington’s own imperfect compliance with arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament agreements ,that “relegate it to the category of information noise”.
“Proceeding from false assumptions, the United States again accuses Russia of maintaining an offensive biological weapons programme in violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). This is nothing but groundless speculation. We consider these inventions to be an attempt to divert the international community’s attention from Washington’s own improper activities in this sensitive area (including outside its borders) that circumvent the BTWC,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated here.
Zakharov added: “Russia is predictably accused of violating the Open Skies Treaty. It is now clear that the purpose of this is to conceal Washington’s own destructive actions as regards this treaty. We have provided exhaustive answers to all claims and do not see any need to comment on them now that the United States has withdrawn from this treaty.”
As for criticisms of Russia’s selective compliance with the 2011 Vienna Document, insufficient transparency and failure to provide information on military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, she said “we will repeat that these sovereign states are not members of the OSCE and are not included in the zone of confidence-building measures”.
She further claimed that the “rant” about non-strategic nuclear weapons comes off as entirely cynical. This comes at a time when the United States and its allies are honing their skill at using these weapons deployed in Europe as part of NATO’s “joint nuclear missions.”
“This is a direct violation of the legally binding NPT, a cornerstone of the system of arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament agreements. Meanwhile, nothing is said about the tectonic shifts in European security caused by the movement of NATO’s strategic military infrastructure nearer Russia’s borders. Likewise, there is no mention of US plans to deploy new nuclear arms contrary to the above-mentioned presidential initiatives, she said and added: “We no longer pay attention to these completely unsubstantiated US concoctions. The report by the State Department has nothing to do with the real challenges of arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament, and should be treated accordingly.”
The Russian reaction to the report coincides with President Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation speech where he warned Russia’s foreign rivals against “crossing the red line” with Moscow. The relations between Russia and the USA have hit an all time low since the Cold War era. There are reports of the USA considering deploying missiles in Ukraine to defend its ally against the Russian forces that is significantly building up on the border, and US President Joe Biden imposing sanctions on Moscow over cyber attacks resulting in both countries expelling each others’ diplomats.
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