On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma a draft law on the suspension of Russia’s participation in the treaty on the limitation of strategic offensive arms. On Wednesday, it will be submitted for consideration by deputies, will be adopted and sent for approval to the Federation Council, said State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.
Volodin’s words are quoted by Interfax. The Duma speaker told reporters that the deputies would “immediately” make a decision on the document. It is not even possible to reject it.
Putin announced the suspension of the treaty in a message to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday afternoon. At the same time, the document does not provide for the possibility of a temporary suspension of action. According to Putin, Moscow will not withdraw from the treaty, but it will not respect it either – theoretically, this could mean that it can build up its nuclear arsenal indefinitely. He also said the Department of Defense should be prepared to carry out nuclear tests banned by the treaty.
Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia intended to comply with the treaty’s quantitative restrictions on offensive weapons. In addition, Moscow plans to continue to exchange ballistic missile launch notifications with Washington during the exercise.
Military expert, researcher at IMEMO RAS Ilya Kramnik notes in his telegram channel that Russia cannot quickly exceed the limits on the number of warheads and carriers specified by the treaty. This will only become possible after the serial production of Sarmat missiles, at the earliest in 2026, he writes. At that time, the contract will have already expired – now it is valid until February 5 of the same year.
The Strategic Offensive Arms Limitation Treaty provides that Russia and the United States will have no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads in combat service on no more than 700 carriers.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called Putin’s decision “sad and irresponsible”. According to him, the United States will follow the real actions of Russia in this field and is always ready to resume negotiations on arms limitation.
