From: slider@anashram.com   
      
   MOSCOW (AP) — Russia-U.S. relations are in a state of “unprecedented   
   crisis” without any sign of improvement, a senior Russian diplomat said   
   Thursday.   
      
   Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov argued that the White House’s   
   emphasis on increasing weapons supplies to Ukraine to ensure Russia’s   
   defeat leaves no room for diplomacy.   
      
   “I don’t see any prospect for a productive political and diplomatic   
   process,” Ryabkov said at a briefing. “We have a very deep and   
   unprecedented crisis in Russia-U.S. relations. The Biden administration   
   has driven them into a deadlock.”   
      
   Ryabkov warned that the U.S. and its allies must carefully assess the   
   risks stemming from supplying increasingly powerful Western weapons to   
   Ukraine.   
      
   “The Americans need to thoroughly and deeply weigh the risks linked to   
   their unabashedly cavalier course,” he said.   
      
   Ryabkov noted that Moscow doesn’t trust Western statements about   
   self-imposed restrictions on a range of weapons supplied to Ukraine in   
   order to avoid escalation, adding that such assurances in the past have   
   served as cover for a steady expansion of the assortment of arms deliveries.   
      
   “We don’t see any sign of reason in any of the NATO and EU members’   
   capitals,” Ryabkov said. “What they are doing isn’t going to strengthen   
   their security.”   
      
   He rejected the U.S. argument that Russia’s refusal to allow the   
   resumption of inspections of its nuclear facilities represents a breach   
   of the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control pact   
   between the two countries.   
      
   The New START treaty, signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and   
   Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than   
   1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.   
   The agreement envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.   
      
   Just days before the treaty was due to expire in February 2021, Russia   
   and the United States agreed to extend it for another five years.   
      
   Russia and the U.S. have suspended mutual inspections under New START   
   since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Moscow last fall refused   
   to allow their resumption, raising uncertainty about the pact’s future.   
   Russia also indefinitely postponed a planned round of consultations   
   under the treaty.   
      
   The U.S. State Department last week said that Russia’s refusal to allow   
   the inspections “prevents the United States from exercising important   
   rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian   
   nuclear arms control.” It noted that nothing prevents Russian inspectors   
   from conducting inspections of the U.S. facilities.   
      
   Ryabkov on Thursday insisted that Russia has continued to comply with   
   the treaty and exchange information in accordance with it. “We adhere to   
   the treaty and observe its provisions,” he said.   
      
   At the same time, he reaffirmed Moscow’s view that resuming inspections   
   wasn’t possible in the current environment.   
      
   Ryabkov’s comments followed a Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement   
   declaring that it was impossible to maintain “business as usual” with   
   Washington at a time when “the U.S. has effectively unleashed a total   
   hybrid war against Russia, which is fraught with a real danger of a   
   direct military confrontation between the two nuclear powers.”   
      
   It charged that Washington’s demand for resuming inspections of Russian   
   nuclear facilities sounds “cynical” after a recent series of Ukrainian   
   drone strikes on Russian air bases housing nuclear-capable strategic   
   bombers that the ministry said relied on U.S. intelligence assistance.   
      
   Ryabkov, who met recently with the new U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Lynne   
   Tracy, also said that the Russian Foreign Ministry has lodged a formal   
   complaint to the U.S. Embassy, charging that its use of social networks   
   represented interference in Russia’s domestic affairs.   
      
   https://www.metro.us/russian-diplomat-says-ties-with-us-in-unpre   
   edented-crisis/   
      
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