Moscow rejects Washington's nuke accusation as 'absurd'

The United States' accusations that Russia has been carrying out nuclear tests are absurd, according to Russian diplomats, who said their country's adherence to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty won't change.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency claimed in June that Russia had carried out nuclear tests and caused nuclear explosions.

This document was issued as a follow-up to a statement by US Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Robert Ashley, who stated that "the United States believes Russia is probably not adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the zero-yield standard".

Russia has strongly rejected Ashley's statement, and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the claims as nonsense.

The US accusations of Russia's breach of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, is baseless, said Russia's deputy envoy at the UN Geneva Office Andrei Belousov, adding that US is attempting to use the accusation against Russia as a pretext for its withdrawal from the agreement.

"It would appear that through propaganda around false claims about Russia's compliance there are attempts to prepare international opinion for a US exit from the CTBT and then to blame Russia again for everything," Belousov told the Conference on Disarmament.

He was speaking days before the deadline for a US withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

The US is set to pull out of the INF accord on Friday, saying it needs to develop its own warheads to deter Moscow, although Russia says it is fully compliant and blames Washington for orchestrating the US withdrawal.

"I can say quite firmly that kind of trick will not work again," Belousov said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said despite the US accusation, Russia is not going to change anything in its policy.

Ryabkov also stressed that there was a lack of trust between his country and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so Russia was reluctant to accept NATO's pledges that its 29 member countries will not to deploy intermediate-range missiles after the treaty is terminated.

"The more NATO says it has no intentions, plans, the less we believe so," Ryabkov said.

Robert Wood, US permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament, responded that Russia's record of violating treaties was a well-established pattern.

"I have to respond to the sort of crafty, Soviet-like propaganda that was espoused earlier during the session by our Russian colleague," Wood said. "We've made very clear that we will abide by our nuclear testing moratorium."