Page 39 - RusRPTMar23

profitable cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and
New Zealand; · developing a
relationship with NATO in proportion to the alliance’s willingness to consider Russia’s national interests.
Now the key goal of Russia’s foreign policy will be to pursue Russia’s “national interests” as defined by the Kremlin, in light of “deep changes taking place in international relations.”
One of the specific instructions in the 2012 decree was for Russia’s Foreign Ministry to consistently implement the new START missile treaty signed by Putin and US President Joe Biden in January 2021 just after the US president took office. The original treaty was signed in 2010 by Russia’s then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, and US President Barack Obama, when both Putin and Biden were serving as the number twos in their respective administrations.
Putin announced that Russia was suspending the treaty during his state of the nation speech on February 21, but emphasized that Russia was not withdrawing from the deal. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs later the same day clarified that the caps on missile numbers contained in the agreement would be respected and Russia would continue to inform Washington of any nuclear tests ahead of time, as was agreed in the deal.
What has changed is the obligation to allow inspections at least twice a year of key nuclear sites will no longer happen. However, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic those inspections have not been happening anyway so little has changed in practice.
The suspension of the treaty, the only Cold War-era arms control agreement still in place, is intended as a signal to the West that Russia is prepared to escalate further in its clash with the West. But at the same time the fact the deal is suspended and that Russia has not withdrawn from the agreement can also be taken as a signal that the Kremlin remains open to restarting arms control talks.
Putin highlighted in his speech the fact that it was the US that unilaterally withdrew from the major arms controls deals over the last two decades starting with former President George W Bush’s decision to cancel the ABM treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) in 2002 over loud protestations by the Kremlin at the time. Putin specifically mentioned the US withdrawal from the INF treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) in 2018 during Donald Trump’s presidency, exclaiming he didn’t know why the US pulled out.
Biden came into office with the promise of reversing this policy and signed off renewing the START treaty within days of entering the Oval Office. The decision was warmly received by the Kremlin which immediately called for talks to begin on reinstating the INF treaty. However, relations decayed rapidly over the next months and those talks never happened.
Biden has shown himself to be a dove on arms controls with Russia. As a Senator in 2002, he argued strongly against pulling out of the ABM treaty, saying it would destabilise international relations, which it did. Later in January 2021 in the month of shuttle diplomacy to prevent the war in Ukraine, US
39 RUSSIA Country Report March 2023 www.intellinews.com