6:04 am ET, July 1, 2023
Russia’s placement of nuclear weapons in Belarus does not violate the treaty, says Russia’s deputy foreign minister
By CNN’s Ulliana Pavlova and Clare Sebastian Sergei Ryabkov attends a news conference in Geneva March 2. Denis Balibouse/Portal/FILE Russia’s placement of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus does not violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state media Saturday.
In an interview with TASS on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Ryabkov also said that the current situation regarding the treaty “does not cause optimism”.
“The US and its allies are trying to use the NPT to impose their own world order picture and achieve their own ambitions,” Ryabkov told TASS.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is suspending his country’s participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, jeopardizing the last remaining pact that governs the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.
The treaty limits the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that the US and Russia can have at their disposal. Under the Nuclear Weapons Control Treaty, both countries are permitted to carry out inspections of each other’s weapons sites. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the controls have been suspended since 2020.
Ryabkov also said that the US stockpiling of some of its own nuclear weapons on the territory of NATO countries in Europe “has acquired special importance and requires an appropriate response, including military-technical response measures.”
“The steps we have taken within the framework of the Union State’s single defense space are of a forced nature. At the same time, they do not go beyond our international obligations, including those under the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Ryabkov told TASS.
“It must be emphasized again: control of Russian nuclear weapons will not be transferred,” he said.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that most of the nuclear weapons that Russia wanted to station in Belarus had arrived. Belarus has been without nuclear weapons since the early 1990s, when it agreed to hand them all over to Russia after gaining independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.