The US State Department believes that Russia violated the Long-Range Nuclear Weapons Reduction Treaty by denying Washington permission to inspect the facilities.

This is stated in the report of the US State Department, which was sent to Congress, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The authors of the article draw attention to the fact that such conclusions of the State Department are the first case when the USA accuses Russia of violating the treaty that entered into force in 2011.

The report of the State Department indicated that the lack of inspections stipulated by the Agreement on the Reduction of Offensive Weapons

makes it difficult to check the number of warheads in Russia.

 These inspections were suspended back in March 2020 by mutual consent amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, after the situation with the coronavirus was brought under control, the commission was not restored due to the decision of the Russian Federation.

"

In September, Russia notified the United States that it had 1,549 warheads and bombs

. But without the ability to use inspections to conduct random checks, the State Department report notes, the United States cannot say for sure whether Russia stayed within the treaty limit last year," it says. WSJ articles.

At the same time, the State Department said that if Moscow exceeds the maximum number of warheads, then these numbers will not be significant from a military point of view.

"Now there is not a single treaty that Russia has not violated or is not violating. The Joint Staff should proceed from the fact that Russia has violated or will violate the new treaty on the reduction of offensive weapons. I want to see plans for how the United States will react," the chairman said House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers.

Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball said the difficulties could create challenges for negotiations on a potential follow-up treaty.

"The new NPT will expire in exactly 1,101 days (2026 - ed). The longer Mr. Putin blocks effective cooperation with the United States on nuclear arms control diplomacy, the more

likely it is that the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States will remain unrestricted for the first time since 1972

Kimball said.

It will be recalled that in December 2022, US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin announced that 

Russia was expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal. 

According to experts, the Russian Federation has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, which includes about 6,000 warheads.

Together, Moscow and Washington possess about 90% of the world's nuclear warheads - enough to destroy the entire planet multiple times.

At the end of December, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, stated that the state will improve the combat capability of the "nuclear triad" in order to guarantee "the preservation of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity." 

Read also:

  • Russia was warned about the consequences of using nuclear weapons - the US ambassador to NATO

  • Stoltenberg assessed the risk of using Russian nuclear weapons: "Rhetoric is irresponsible and dangerous"

  • American intelligence insists that there is no indication that Russia plans to use nuclear weapons 

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