{"id":230097,"date":"2023-02-27T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=230097"},"modified":"2023-02-22T05:17:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T05:17:51","slug":"putin-suspends-start-nuclear-pact-with-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/02\/putin-suspends-start-nuclear-pact-with-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin Suspends START Nuclear Pact with USA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Russia, 21 Feb 2023. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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22 Feb 2023 –<\/em> Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow\u2019s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact<\/a> with the United States, announcing the move yesterday in a bitter speech in which he made clear he would not change his strategy in the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Putin emphasized, however, that Russia isn\u2019t withdrawing from the pact yet, and hours after his address the Foreign Ministry said Moscow would respect the treaty\u2019s caps on nuclear weapons. It also said Russia would continue to exchange information about test launches of ballistic missiles per earlier agreements with the United States.<\/p>\n

In his long-delayed state-of-the-nation address, Putin cast his country \u2014 and Ukraine \u2014 as victims of Western double-dealing and said it was Russia, not Ukraine, fighting for its very existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren\u2019t fighting the Ukrainian people,\u201d Putin said ahead of the war\u2019s first anniversary Friday<\/a>. \u201cThe Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech reiterated a litany of grievances he has frequently offered as justification for the widely condemned military campaign, while vowing no military letup.<\/p>\n

Along with limits on the number of nuclear weapons, the 2010 New START envisages broad inspections of nuclear sites. Putin said Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on such tests in place since the Cold War era.<\/p>\n

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded by calling for Russia and the United States to return to dialogue immediately because \u201ca world without nuclear arms control is a far more dangerous and unstable one.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Moscow\u2019s decision to suspend participation in the treaty as \u201creally unfortunate and very irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,\u201d he said while visiting Greece.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun called on the U.S. and Russia to \u201ccontinue to negotiate with each other in finding a good solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in Poland a day after his surprise visit to Ukraine, did not mention the START suspension but blasted Putin for the invasion. He pledged continued support for Ukraine despite \u201chard and bitter days ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever,\u201d Biden said at Warsaw\u2019s landmark Royal Castle before a cheering crowd of Poles and Ukrainian refugees.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s announcement was the second time in recent days the Ukraine war showed it could spread into perilous new terrain, after Blinken told China over the weekend that it would be a \u201cserious problem\u201d if Beijing provided arms and ammunition to Russia.<\/p>\n

China and Russia have aligned their foreign policies to oppose Washington. Beijing has refused to condemn Russia\u2019s invasion or atrocities against civilians in Ukraine, while strongly criticizing Western economic sanctions on Moscow. Late last year, Russia and China held joint naval drills.<\/p>\n

The deputy head of Ukraine\u2019s intelligence service, Vadym Skibitskyi, told The Associated Press his agency hasn\u2019t seen any signs so far that China is providing weapons to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and made a dash toward Kyiv, apparently expecting to overrun the capital quickly. But stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces \u2014 supported by Western weapons \u2014 turned back Moscow\u2019s troops. While Ukraine has reclaimed many areas initially seized by Russia, the sides have become bogged down elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The war has revived the divide between Russia and the West, reinvigorated the NATO alliance, and created the biggest threat to Putin\u2019s rule of more than two decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s speech, Putin again offered his own version of recent history, discounting Ukraine\u2019s arguments that it needed Western help to thwart a Russian military takeover. He has repeatedly depicted NATO\u2019s expansion to include countries close to Russia as an existential threat to his country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s they who have started the war. And we are using force to end it,\u201d he said before an audience of lawmakers, officials and soldiers, and broadcast on all state TV channels.<\/p>\n

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was in Ukraine on Tuesday, said she wished Putin had taken a different approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we heard this morning was propaganda that we already know,\u201d Meloni said in English. \u201cHe says (Russia) worked on diplomacy to avoid the conflict, but the truth is that there is somebody who is the invader and somebody who is defending itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also meeting with Zelenskyy was the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led a delegation for the first time since the start of the war and since Republicans won control of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Chairman Mike McCaul and a handful of other GOP lawmakers said they had a productive meeting about what Zelenskyy needs for winning the war. He provided them with a list of weapons, including longer-range artillery and air-to-surface systems.<\/p>\n

The meeting comes as some hard-right Republicans are vowing to block future U.S. aid to Ukraine. \u201cWe have seen time and again the majority of Republicans and Democrats support our assistance to Ukraine,\u201d McCaul said in a statement. \u201cBut the Biden administration needs to lay out their long-term strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin denied any wrongdoing in Ukraine, even after Kremlin forces struck civilian targets, including hospitals, and are widely accused of war crimes.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy cited fresh attacks on Ukrainian civilians Tuesday, and downplayed Putin\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not watched it, because during this time there were missile strikes on Kherson. Twenty-one people were wounded and six were killed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Putin also accused the West of taking aim at Russian culture, religion and values. He fired another broadside at Western gender policies that he described as efforts to destroy \u201ctraditional\u201d values.<\/p>\n

And he said Western sanctions hadn\u2019t \u201cachieved anything and will not achieve anything.\u201d He blasted Russian tycoons who kept their assets in the West and saw them confiscated or frozen as part of the sanctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve me, ordinary people had no sympathy for those who lost their yachts, palaces and other assets abroad,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n

While Russia\u2019s Constitution mandates that the president deliver the state-of-the-nation speech annually, Putin never gave one in 2022. Last year, the Kremlin also canceled two other big annual events \u2014 Putin\u2019s news conference and a highly scripted phone-in marathon taking questions from the public.<\/p>\n

Reflecting the Kremlin\u2019s clampdown on free speech and press<\/a>, it barred in-person coverage of the address by media from \u201cunfriendly\u201d countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and those in the European Union.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – apnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 Feb 2023 – Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow\u2019s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US, announcing the move yesterday in a bitter speech in which he made clear he would not change his strategy in the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":230098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[450,818,253,278,1838,961],"class_list":["post-230097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-proxy-war","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-start","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230103,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230097\/revisions\/230103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}