03 June 2023, Saturday, 16:16 387

United States stops sharing nuclear weapons data with Russia

Editor: Roman Vaniyan

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The United States has stopped sharing nuclear weapons data with the terrorist country Russia, which was exchanged under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT-3) suspended by the Kremlin. From June 1, Russia no longer receives information about the launches of American intercontinental ballistic missiles and the locations of strategic forces, including the missiles and their launchers, the State Department said in a statement.

In addition, the United States froze the mechanism of inspecting nuclear weapons in its territory. From now on, Russian specialists will be unable to obtain American visas to inspect strategic facilities of the States, and previously issued visas will be canceled.

"The United States, as before, is ready to work constructively with Russia regarding the restoration of the implementation of the SORT provisions," the State Department emphasizes.

However, such work is unlikely now: President Vladimir Putin has announced the suspension of Russia's participation in the treaty, the previous bilateral agreement on nuclear weapons left over from the era of "detente" at the end of the Cold War.

Russia "refused to hold meetings of the bilateral advisory commission" on issues of mutual inspections, the State Department emphasizes, adding that Moscow was informed in advance of the consequences of its decisions.

As earlier reported, in the first days of the war with Ukraine, Putin announced the transfer of Russia's strategic forces to a special combat duty regime and threatened the countries that would try to interfere with his plans with consequences. The Russian military in Kaliningrad often conducted exercises with Iskander complexes, simulating the possibility of a tactical nuclear attack on European states.

Six months later, when the army began to retreat, handing over the captured territories with blood, Putin issued a series of nuclear threats, which he himself voiced in a veiled manner and in a direct form he entrusted to the former president and now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.

In December, Putin announced the abandonment of the Soviet-era doctrine of "appropriate-reciprocal" nuclear strikes in favor of "preventive" ones, and three months later announced the termination of participation in the SORT.

In response, the US resumed production of nuclear warheads for the first time since the collapse of the USSR. By 2023, according to the annual report of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the program is scheduled to produce 80 plutonium cores annually, a key component of strategic and tactical warheads and bombs.

It is also planned to continue work on extending the service life of the B61-12 nuclear bombs deployed in Europe and modernizing the warheads of the Trident II intercontinental ballistic missiles deployed on submarines.