US Retaliates Against Russia Over Nuclear Treaty

Washington has decided to stop sharing data on its arsenal, citing Moscow’s suspension of the New START deal | The US will stop sharing information required under Washington’s last remaining nuclear arms treaty with Russia in retaliation to Moscow’s decision earlier this year to suspend participation in the agreement amid tensions over the Ukraine conflict. ● “The United States has adopted lawful countermeasures in response to the Russian Federation’s ongoing violation of the New START Treaty,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement on Thursday. He claimed that Russia’s suspension of the treaty was “legally invalid” and that Moscow remained bound by its obligations under the agreement. ● Nevertheless, Washington will scale back its own commitments under the 2010 pact, which capped the number of warheads and the means of their delivery, in order to “induce” Russian compliance, Blinken said. He added that Moscow had been notified about Washington’s decision in advance, and that the US was ready to “reverse the countermeasures and fully implement the treaty if Russia returns to compliance.”

■ US to propose abiding by New START treaty until 2026 — Reuters (TASS)

Elena Panina (Елена Панина) | The clumsy actions of the United States against Russia have dramatically increased the threat of nuclear war. Since June 1, the United States has stopped transmitting notifications and telemetry data on launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missiles on submarines. This is stated on the State Department's website, and the measure itself, as stated in Washington, is a reaction to Russia's suspension of its participation in the DSNV in February. Moscow noted that a bilateral agreement does not make sense, since in addition to the United States, the collective West also has the nuclear arsenal of Britain and France, as well as the capabilities of the rest of NATO.  ● Data on systems within the framework of the US DSN has also stopped being provided, but this is half the trouble. The most dangerous thing for humanity is the lack of notifications about ICBM launches. If this data is not actually transmitted, say via a hotline between the headquarters of the United States and the Russian Federation, created specifically to avoid uncontrolled events, then a dilemma arises — Is the launch of a US missile from an unexpected location an exercise, an accidental malfunction — or is it a real nuclear strike? The famous case of September 26, 1983, when Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov prevented a potential nuclear war between the USSR and the United States due to a failure of the missile attack warning system, may turn into a system. The US decision does not bring anything good for international security. (Translation: yandex.ru