Russia refuses to discuss arms control with US because of Ukraine

MOSCOW

Russia does not intend to discuss with the US the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) while Washington supplies Kyiv with weapons, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

Moscow "highly appreciates" the START, it meets the mutual interests of Russia and America, but there must be "appropriate conditions" for its discussion, Zakharova said in an interview with Sputnik radio.

"The United States of America intends to supply even more weapons to the conflict region, in which the Russian Federation is directly involved. So, they will supply all these weapons, they will incite the Kyiv regime to even more bloodshed, they will allocate money for extremist activities that are conducted under the auspices of these inadequate people on Bankova (street where the Ukrainian president's office is located), and we will sit at the same table with them and discuss issues of mutual security with them, including in their interests?" she asked.

In a separate statement on Telegram, Zakharova also commented on the criticism of Russia's strikes at Ukraine's energy infrastructure, and published an excerpt from former NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea briefing where he justified the alliance's strikes at former Yugoslavia's energy infrastructure.

"To (NATO Secretary-General Jens) Stoltenberg, (top EU diplomat Josep) Borrell, and White Housicians ('inhabitants' of the White House) for the memory," Zakharova wrote.

At a briefing on May 25, 1999 when asked to explain NATO's attacks on energy infrastructure, Shea said: "That electricity, those facilities, drive the military machine of (former Serbian President Slobodan) Milosevic, that is why they are a target. (...) It is up to him to decide if he wants to use those generators for his hospitals and his schools, or his educational establishments - although they seem to all be closed - or whether he wants to use them to keep his military machine running. If that is a headache for him, good, I am not going to apologise for that, we want him to have those kind of headaches."