Lavrov warned about the consequences of the lack of strategic dialogue between the Russian Federation and the United States

Freezing by Washington of the strategic dialogue between Russia and the United States is fraught with an avalanche-like increase in risks, declared Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his video address to the participants of the Moscow Conference on Nonproliferation.

“We note with regret that at the moment the strategic dialogue between Russia and the United States … is being held by Washington in a “frozen” state … It is clear that in the absence of negotiation work to maintain strategic stability, the existing problems will accumulate. This is fraught with an avalanche-like increase in risks,” the minister said.

Lavrov drew attention to the fact that the latest result of the joint work in this direction of the two countries with nuclear arsenals was an agreement to extend the START Treaty.

START-3 was concluded in 2010 for 10 years, it was extended for another five years in 2021 with the coming to power of the administration of US President Joe Biden. It is now the last arms control treaty between Russia and the United States in force. It provided for the reduction of strategic weapons to 700 deployed (and 800 in total) carriers (submarines, intercontinental missiles and heavy bombers) and 1,550 deployed warheads.

On November 29, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that the START talks between Moscow and Washington had been postponed to a later date. The United States, in turn, announced its readiness to hold a meeting of the commission on START as soon as possible. Deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Ryabkov noted that it is still premature to say how and when the Russian side will make new proposals and what period of time Moscow will eventually focus on.

November 14 in Ankara took place Russian-American negotiations initiated by the USA. The heads of the Foreign Intelligence Service and the CIA, Sergei Naryshkin and William Burns, discussed the topics of nuclear risk management and Ukraine during the talks. In addition, the position on the inadmissibility of the use of nuclear weapons was formulated in a joint statement of the G20 countries, adopted following the summit in Bali on November 15-16.

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