At the end of last year, Putin announced that he intended to introduce the Avangard missile into the scope of the START-3 treaty. Immediately after that, they started talking about the fact that Russia allegedly recognized itself as defeated. But is it true that Russia "bowed its head"? As it is not so. With her statements, she only fools America's head, the user of "Sina" is sure.
The United States and Russia are still at the stage of negotiations on the extension of the nuclear disarmament treaty. Russia recently made a new statement. At the end of 2020, Vladimir Putin publicly announced that he agreed to include the Avangard missile in the scope of the "Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms" (START III). This news caused a lot of talk, to the point that some even said: "Russia has declared itself defeated!" And there are, of course, infinitely many rumors related to this news!
Whether the rumors are true that Russia is "bowed the head"? It seems that all this is an incorrect interpretation of this news. Perhaps now everyone should seriously think: is Russia's agreement to limit the use of the Avangard hypersonic missile a concession, or is Russia simply misleading America? The second option is more likely, the first one is not even worth talking about.
On the issue of the terms of nuclear disarmament, Russia and the United States have been fighting for an endless time. The question is not who should renew the contract. Perhaps both sides are only acting for the sake of reputation and do not want to create an image of a country that easily breaks treaties, so they are trying their best to shift the blame to the other as much as possible!
We should not assume that Russia's new statement implies any concessions: we should pay attention to the wording of the corresponding statement. Russia is only talking about the inclusion, not the destruction of the missile, in fact, it is just playing a game of words. Anyway, she's just fooling the US with her position! Strictly speaking, there is no "Avangard missile", there is only the Avangard combat unit, which is a nuclear warhead. It can only use intercontinental missiles as boosters. We can say that the "Vanguard" is a guided combat unit used in nuclear missiles. According to the Russian army's plan, the new intercontinental missiles will gradually be equipped with Avangard warheads to increase the power of the strategic deterrent forces.
Regardless of the characteristics of the Avangard warhead, it actually falls within the scope of the START III Treaty, and does not go beyond it. Now Russia has stated that it can be included in the Treaty, but no action has been taken: as it should have been, the Russian side has already once demonstrated the controlled Avangard block in accordance with the previous content of the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty. In other words, the Russian side initially considered it as one of the goals that fall under the restrictions of START III.
At present, Russia has not taken any significant actions to include such weapons in the Treaty: from the point of view of the speed of rearmament of Russian troops, the Avangard warhead will be adopted gradually and rather slowly. Now no one unit does not have sufficient quantity of this equipment. What practical inclusion of the missile in the scope of the "Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms" can we talk about? Given the quantitative restrictions that Russia is simply not able to achieve.
The statement of the Russian side is a clever play on words, in which Russia in fact does not make any significant concessions. The United States should only view it as a gesture of goodwill to continue negotiations. If the US recognizes this as sufficient compensation and starts discussions on START III, won't it be in a worse position and pay a higher price than Russia? Now tell me, isn't this just a sophisticated mockery of Russia over the United States?
