Ryabkov accused the United States of manipulating data on strategic offensive arms

The United States manipulates data on strategic offensive weapons. This statement was made by Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov. His words published on the website of the department.

“Declared figures are often fictitious or conditional. In particular, the US State Department’s recently released data on US START continues to be misleading due to its inconsistency with the START counting rules, which Washington is stubbornly trying to circumvent through unscrupulous manipulations,” he said.

Ryabkov pointed to the hypocritical nature of the attempts by Western countries to “earn political points on information about the size of their nuclear potentials.” According to him, Washington leaves “out of brackets” more than 100 units of START, which should be subject to the START.

At the same time, Russia is showing the maximum possible transparency “within the limits of political and military expediency,” Ryabkov stressed. He noted that Moscow regularly informs about the systems in service.

May 15 US State Department published data on START, according to which the United States has 662 operationally deployed carriers of nuclear warheads. Washington emphasized that they publish these data voluntarily, although Moscow suspended participation in START on February 28.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov at the end of February emphasizedthat Russia does not leave START, but only suspends its participation. He noted that NATO was getting more and more involved in the conflict in Ukraine, while the alliance claimed to participate in the agreement. At the same time, Peskov said that Russia needs to take into account the nuclear potential of France and Germany. “The main goal of the president and our country is to make sure that this nuclear parity continues,” Peskov emphasized.

START III was concluded in 2010 for 10 years, it was extended for another five years in 2021 with the coming to power 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.