Russia temporarily halts inspections of its facilities under New START treaty

MOSCOW - Russia has temporarily withdrawn its facilities from inspections under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the country's foreign ministry said in a statement Monday.

"Russia officially informed the United States ... that our country was temporarily withdrawing its facilities subject to inspections under this treaty from inspection activities," the ministry said.

Moscow was forced to suspend inspections "as a result of Washington's persistent attempts to restart inspection activities" under unfair conditions, which created advantages for the US side, while simultaneously making it impossible for Russia to carry out inspections in the United States.

Anti-Russian restrictions, imposed by Washington, have disrupted air travel between Russia and the United States, making it impossible for Russian inspection teams to reach necessary destinations, the ministry said.

The ministry said that both sides must "abandon counterproductive attempts aimed at artificially speeding up the resumption of inspection activities" and focus on eliminating all existing problems in this area.

It said that the measures were temporary, and would be canceled if all existing issues were eliminated.

In 2010, Washington and Moscow signed the New START, which stipulates limits to the numbers of deployed nuclear warheads and strategic delivery systems by both.

The New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty in force between the two nuclear superpowers, can be extended by a maximum of five years with the consent of the two countries. Russia and the United States officially extended the treaty by five years on Feb 3, 2021.