“Without a head and brains”: the Duma with harsh comments suspended Russia’s participation in the START Treaty

The State Duma almost without discussion and unanimously adopted a law to suspend the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States. It follows from the text of the document submitted to parliament late last night by Vladimir Putin that the decision to renew the treaty by Russia can be taken by the President of the Russian Federation at any time alone.

The day before, Vladimir Putin, in the final part of his message to the Federal Assembly, announced the expediency of Russia suspending its participation in this bilateral agreement signed in Prague in April 2010 by US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The head of state submitted a draft law of the appropriate content to the State Duma closer to the night of February 21. But having gathered at 10 am on February 22 in the plenary hall, the deputies already had in their hands the conclusion of the relevant Committee on International Affairs – it was proposed to support the president’s initiative in it.

The meeting of the State Duma on February 22, no matter what anyone said or wrote, was planned and was listed in the work schedule of the chamber, adopted back in December last year. An extraordinary meeting of the Federation Council, scheduled for the same day.

Although the Treaty itself (START-3) does not say anything about the procedure for a possible suspension of its operation by one of the parties (only the procedure for ratification of the document by both parties and the procedure for a possible withdrawal from it is prescribed), the current law in Russia “On International Treaties of the Russian Federation” prescribes in those In cases where international treaties or agreements have been ratified by parliament, suspend their operation on the initiative of the president “with the obligatory immediate notification of the Federation Council and the State Duma and the submission to the State Duma of a draft of the relevant federal law.” So the procedure from the point of view of Russian law was observed.

The bill itself was extremely brief and consisted of two points: to suspend Russia’s participation in the START, the decision to renew the Treaty “is made by the President of the Russian Federation”, the law comes into force from the moment of its official publication, that is, immediately after the approval by the senators and the signature of Vladimir Putin. It is worth recalling that the term of the agreement was initially determined at 10 years, in 2021 Russia and the United States exchanged notes and signed an Agreement to extend its validity for five years, until 2026.

The explanatory note to the document took up only a third of a page: “The Treaty contains provisions on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. In order to ensure control over compliance with the Treaty, each of the Parties has the right to carry out inspection activities. At the same time, the United States deliberately fails to fulfill its obligations under the Treaty in this area of ​​activity, the document says.

On behalf of the president, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke at the plenary session. “The extreme hostility of the United States, the confrontation fomented by Washington, the openly taken course towards the escalation of the situation in Ukraine and around it have created a fundamentally new environment for us in terms of security. The United States does not hide the fact that, supported by its satellites, they seek to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, they try to harm our country at any level, in any area and in any region of the world,” he said. Consolidation “on the anti-Russian soil of Western states is increasingly covering their nuclear policy”, NATO countries have declared themselves a nuclear alliance, and “in this context, the factor of the combined nuclear arsenal of the three NATO nuclear powers, namely the United States, Great Britain and France”. This arsenal could be turned against Russia, Mr. Ryabkov recalled.

He listed the facts that, according to the Russian side, testify to the violation of certain provisions of the START by the United States: the link between offensive and defensive nuclear weapons is ignored, missile defense systems are being built up, although when Russia ratified the treaty in 2011, a special statement was made that the document was viable maybe only if this does not happen… The speaker continued that the key provision of the treaty on the quantitative limitation on the corresponding weapons is being violated. “The Americans are raising the stakes in the all-out hybrid war unleashed against our country,” on this basis, the President of the Russian Federation announced the suspension of the START by Russia, the Deputy Foreign Minister said.

Last night, the Foreign Ministry said that Russia’s suspension of the treaty would not mean a rejection of the quantitative restrictions prescribed in it – “in order to maintain a sufficient degree of predictability and stability in the nuclear missile sphere” they will be “strictly observed.” And the Russian Federation will also continue to participate in the exchange of notifications with the Americans about launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Foreign Ministry stressed. But Mr. Ryabkov did not speak about these nuances from the rostrum of the State Duma.

The head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), in turn, continued listing claims against the United States. There was an agreement on the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium, he recalled, Russia implemented its requirements, built disposition plants, but the United States did not, “quietly pumped spent nuclear fuel into underground gaps,” which makes it possible to use it again at any time, and Russia withdrew from this agreement in 2016. Now the situation is similar, but much more serious, Mr. Slutsky believes: “The United States, in fact, threatens to undermine the strategic balance of nuclear forces through nuclear weapons tests,” and if such tests really pass, Russia’s hands should not be tied by the START Treaty.

Mr. Slutsky stressed that the day before the president had not said what “all sorts of Western experts predicted in quotation marks”: he had not declared war – “the holy, most important, but special military operation continues”, he had not withdrawn from the START Treaty – only his the action was suspended in the hope that “our opponents will come to their senses and stop doing completely unimaginable things.” The deputy called the suspension of the contract “rational, timely and minimal of our possible steps.”

Following on the podium, the head of the Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kartapolov (ER) went up. The START treaty is “practically the only international treaty instrument for mutual control over strategic offensive arms of the two largest nuclear states” and covers heavy bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and ICBM launchers, he recalled. The treaty provides for the reduction of deployed nuclear warheads on both sides, inspection activities and the exchange of telemetry data. According to Mr. Kartapolov, the United States has recently been very loose in interpreting the provisions of this document: they unilaterally transferred about 100 nuclear weapons allegedly to the category of “training”, and when Russia, in accordance with the treaty, proposed to conduct a verification, our “partners refused under false pretenses. “According to the estimates of our military, with the help of illegitimate re-equipment, the United States reserved for itself the opportunity at any moment, I emphasize, at any moment to increase the strategic potential by more than 1,200 nuclear charges,” he said. He offered to support the bill, expressing the hope that “our Western colleagues will more rationally and balancedly assess the situation that they themselves have created and reconsider their approaches to this most important problem for the global world.”

The speaker of the State Duma immediately invited the Western parliamentarians to “think seriously”: “What they created with their own hands, apparently due to the lack of a head and brains, is completely unacceptable,” he said. What Western parliamentarians would think in the absence of a head and brains was not specified.

It was decided not to ask questions to the speakers, to refuse to speak on motives: indeed, all the leaders of the factions, without exception, had already expressed their support for the initiative in advance.

401 deputies voted “for”. The law on the suspension of the START Treaty for Russia was adopted unanimously. “Congratulations, colleagues! Thus, we began the implementation of the President’s message with a law that will largely ensure the security of our country,” Mr. Volodin summed up.