The Russian deputy foreign minister on Thursday said the US and NATO's increasing involvement in the conflict in Ukraine could result in a direct military clash of nuclear powers "with disastrous consequences."
When Moscow speaks about such risks, its remarks are twisted for propaganda purposes, Sergey Ryabkov said in his address at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
Ryabkov said he spoke in place of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who could not take part in the conference because of EU sanctions against him.
“We view this as an attempt of EU countries to evade an honest dialogue intended to facilitate the long-term improvement of global security and stability including by freeing the world from the burden of WMD-related threats,” he said.
Ryabkov said the US and NATO's "destructive steps" led to problems in international arms control architecture, which is based on four major treaties -- Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the US left in 2002, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which Washington withdrew in 2019 and the Open Skies Treaty, from which the US withdrew in 2020.
According to him, Russia suspended its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) after US attempts "to probe" the security of Russian strategic facilities declared under the pact by organizing Ukraine's attacks on them.
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