According to him, it began after the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty
Moscow. October 13. INTERFAX - The arms race between Russia and the United States began after the American side withdrew from the anti-missile defense treaty and is on the march, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"The arms race is on the march, unfortunately. It began after the US withdrawal from the anti-missile defense treaty," Putin said, speaking at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week.
He noted that back in 2003 he called on the United States not to withdraw from the ABM treaty. "This is a fundamental thing, the cornerstone of international security. This is not just a defense, it is an attempt to gain strategic advantages by de-energizing the nuclear potential of a potential enemy," the president said.
"What should we do in response? I have said this many times. If you are interested, I will repeat. Or create the same system, which costs a lot of money and it is not known how effectively it will work. Or create another system that will certainly overcome missile defense. I said that we will do it," Putin said.
"The answer from the American partners was this: our missile defense is not against you, you do what you want, we will proceed from the fact that it is not against us," he added.
The Russian President noted that Russia is now ready to conduct a constructive dialogue with the United States on this matter.
In June of this year, Putin already noted that the arms race in the world is currently going on both openly and covertly. "In fact, unfortunately, it (the arms race) is not on our initiative, covertly or openly," Putin said at a meeting with graduates of the personnel reserve program of the Higher School of Public Administration.
