US confirms withdrawal from nuclear arms treaty with Russia

The Guardian informs, that the US national security adviser, John Bolton, has confirmed that the US will withdrawal from the landmark intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF) after meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials.

Speaking in Moscow, Bolton said that Russia had been violating the treaty for years and that rising powers such as China meant that it was a “new strategic reality out there”.

The treaty, concluded in 1987, barred the United States and Russia from deploying missiles with a range from 500 to 5,500 km, and largely was credited with banishing nuclear missiles from Europe.

Bolton avoided directly answering questions from press about whether “we’ll soon be seeing US missiles in Europe”, saying only that the single country constrained by the INF treaty was the United States.

Bolton met with Putin at the Kremlin on Tuesday, where he came to explain the US exit from the INF. The Russian leader joked that the US seal showed an eagle carrying olives branches and arrows. “The question is: did your eagle already eat all the olives and only the arrows are left?”

“Hopefully I’ll have some answers for you,” Bolton replied. “But I didn’t bring any more olives.”

According to the Reuters, Bolton directly criticized Russian officials for meddling in United States elections although, he said, their actions had not had any effect on electoral outcomes.

The New York Times reports that President Vladimir V. Putin warned on that if the United States deploys new intermediate-range missiles in Europe after withdrawing from a nuclear treaty prohibiting these weapons, European nations will be at risk of “a possible counterstrike.”

Prepared by Marina Muradyan