Putin pulls back from nuclear treaty
Tries to justify war with Ukraine ahead of 1st anniversary
Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow’s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States, announcing the move Tuesday in a bitter speech in which he made clear he would not change his strategy in the war in Ukraine.
Putin emphasized, however, that Russia isn’t withdrawing from the pact yet, and hours later the Foreign Ministry said Moscow would respect the treaty’s caps on nuclear weapons. It also said Russia would continue to exchange information about test launches of ballistic missiles per earlier agreements with the United States.
In his long-delayed stateof-the-nation address, Putin cast his country — and Ukraine — as victims of Western double-dealing and said it was Russia, not Ukraine, fighting for its very existence.
“We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” Putin said ahead of the war’s first anniversary Friday. “The Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”
The speech reiterated grievances he has frequently offered as justification for the widely condemned military campaign, while vowing no military letup.
Along with limits on the number of nuclear weapons, the 2010 New START envisages broad inspections of nuclear sites. Putin said Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on such tests in place since the Cold War era.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded
by calling for Russia and the United States to return to dialogue immediately.
While visiting Greece, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Moscow’s decision to suspend participation in the treaty as “really unfortunate and very irresponsible.”
President Joe Biden, speaking in Poland a day after his surprise visit to Ukraine, did not mention the START suspension but blasted Putin for the invasion. He pledged continued support for Ukraine despite “hard and bitter days ahead.”
“Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever,” Biden said at Warsaw’s landmark Royal Castle before a cheering crowd of Poles and Ukrainian refugees.
The war has revived the divide between Russia and the West, reinvigorated the NATO alliance and created the biggest threat to Putin’s rule of more than two decades.
In Tuesday’s speech, Putin again offered his own version of recent history, discounting Ukraine’s arguments that it needed Western help to thwart a Russian military takeover. He has repeatedly depicted NATO’s expansion to include countries close to Russia as an existential threat to his country.
“It’s they who have started the war. And we are using force to end it,” he said before an audience of lawmakers, officials and soldiers, and broadcast on all state TV channels.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was in Ukraine
on Tuesday, said she wished Putin had taken a different approach.
“What we heard this morning was propaganda that we already know,” Meloni said in English. “He says (Russia) worked on diplomacy to avoid the conflict, but the truth is that there is somebody who is the invader and somebody who is defending itself.”
Also meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led a delegation for the first time since the start of the war and since Republicans won control of the House of Representatives.
Chairman Mike McCaul of Texas and a handful of other GOP lawmakers said they had a productive meeting
about what Zelenskyy needs for winning the war. He provided them with a list of weapons, including longer-range artillery and air-to-surface systems.
The meeting comes as some hard-right Republicans are vowing to block future U.S. aid to Ukraine. “We have seen time and again the majority of Republicans and Democrats support our assistance to Ukraine,” McCaul said in a statement. “But the Biden administration needs to lay out their long-term strategy.”
Putin denied any wrongdoing in Ukraine, even after Kremlin forces struck civilian targets, including hospitals, and are widely accused of war crimes.
Zelenskyy cited fresh attacks on Ukrainian civilians Tuesday, and downplayed Putin’s speech.
“I have not watched it, because during this time there were missile strikes on Kherson,” he said, adding that six people were killed and 21 wounded.
Putin also accused the West of taking aim at Russian culture, religion and values. He fired another broadside at Western gender policies that he described as efforts to destroy “traditional” values.
And he said Western sanctions hadn’t “achieved anything and will not achieve anything.” He blasted Russian tycoons who kept their assets in the West and saw them confiscated or frozen as part of the sanctions.
“Believe me, ordinary people had no sympathy for those who lost their yachts, palaces and other assets abroad,” Putin said.