Russia blames the US for the “collapse” of their bilateral relations

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4 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov has accused the US authorities of having “radically changed” their position towards Russia in recent years, which has led to bilateral relations having “collapsed”.

According to Riabkov, the different governments of the United States –from Barack Obama to Joe Biden, through Donald Trump– have “radically changed” the course since the signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 2010.

“I will describe the current state of relations in one word: collapse. Relations are destroyed and the responsibility for this falls on the United States,” Deputy Minister Riabkov told Rossiya-24 television.

On the other hand, when asked if the aforementioned START agreement is now irretrievable, Riabkov has acknowledged that “it is not destroyed or liquidated”, since it still “exists on paper”, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced to end of February that Russia suspended the treaty.

In fact, the Deputy Foreign Minister has valued Putin’s decision, considering that Russia can now “guarantee nuclear security” without having to comply with the “conditions” that the United States was trying to impose.

Beyond this, Riabkov has recognized that the agreement can be “restored” in the future, although for that it is necessary for Washington to abandon “its current destructive position” and begin to show that it understands that it also has to change its attitude to with Russia. “Behaving like this is unacceptable,” said the deputy foreign minister.

President Putin signed at the end of February the suspension of the nuclear arms treaty signed with Washington, although days ago he had qualified that it is not a total “abandonment” of the agreement and argued that the country “must be prepared to carry out nuclear tests if the United States carries them out first.”