Putin: "We disrupt participation in the New START agreement"

Putin: "We disrupt participation in the New START agreement"

During the address to the members of both houses of the Russian Parliament, the Russian President announced that Russia is terminating its participation in the agreement on strategic offensive weapons.

"We disrupt participation in the agreement. I repeat, we are not withdrawing from that agreement, we are terminating our participation. First of all, we need to understand what France and Britain want, and we will act accordingly," said Vladimir Putin.

"There is no need for them to lie and pretend that they are supporters of peace. We all know that the importance of some agreements is being highlighted and everyone is getting closer to the development of new nuclear weapons. We will too, but not the first. However, if the USA conducts nuclear weapons testing, we will do it too," Putin said, adding that there is already information that official Washington is preparing for it.

We are talking about the New START agreement, which is the only remaining agreement on the control of the nuclear arms race between America and Russia. The New START Treaty between Russia and the US was signed on April 8, 2010 in Prague and replaced the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty of 1991.

"But we will behave as we think we should. And it has nothing to do with hostile relations towards us, although they want our defeat. It is difficult to call them idiots, because they are not stupid. They want to defeat us and control our nuclear weapons," the Russian leader said.

He reminded that the USA and NATO directly said that their goal is the strategic defeat of Russia. "After that, visiting Russia's defense facilities is not an option," the Russian leader pointed out.

"At the beginning of February, NATO asked us to return to the treaty on the non-proliferation of strategic weapons, including inspections of facilities. It is a theater of the absurd. We know that the West helped the Kyiv regime in attacking facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, and at the same time they want to inspect our facilities", Putin concluded.