Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has denied the U.S. claims that Russia has violated its nuclear testing obligations.
Washington lies about alleged nuclear tests conducted in Russia.
On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, commenting on the U.S. Department of State’s 2019 report on U.S. compliance with arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament agreements, said that Russia had not taken any action in violation of its obligations to ban nuclear testing.
“As for the accusations from Washington, D.C., for more than six months now that we are allegedly not in full compliance with our own moratorium on nuclear testing, we reiterate that we have not taken any action that would include elements of deviation from this obligation arising from our unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and from our ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty”, – Ryabkov said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov pointed out that Washington’s actions are reminiscent of a disinformation campaign that the U.S. launched at the time in preparation for unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.
“At that time they tried to find an excuse to lay the blame on others to create a suitable propaganda background in the world for a subsequent withdrawal from this treaty. In this way, the U.S. sows uncertainty in the international community about what is happening in this area. We urge the U.S. to abandon its growing practice of misinforming the international community about what is happening”, – he concluded.
As noted in the State Department’s 2019 report on U.S. compliance with arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament agreements, which was sent to Congress, Washington continues to believe that Russia conducted nuclear testing last year.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called them delusional speculation. A moratorium on nuclear testing has been in force in Russia for almost three decades. The last such test was conducted at the Novaya Zemlya test site on October 24, 1990.