On October 14, Jeffrey Eberhardt, the Special Representative of the US President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, demanded that Russia remove the missiles that are allegedly stationed there from Europe, as this goes against the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF).
This is how the special representative answered the question about how the administration of US President Joe Biden treats the initiative of Russian leader Vladimir Putin to impose moratoriums on the deployment of medium-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe.
"Russia has already violated the INF Treaty by deploying missiles. So the solution is for them to remove them," Eberhardt said.
On July 28, a meeting of delegations from Russia and the United States took place in Geneva, where they discussed the approaches of the parties to issues of strategic stability, prospects for arms control and measures to reduce risks.
According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the talks were constructive. He stressed that the United States did not impose its position at the meeting and 100% fulfilled its part of the obligations on strategic stability after the summit held in June.
On the same day, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov indicated Russia's readiness to discuss with the United States any weapon with strategic potential, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, offensive and defensive. He also noted that the discussion of missile defense issues is overdue.
On March 12, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the possible deployment of American ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region could lead to a new round of the arms race with unpredictable consequences.
The Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles was concluded between the USSR and the United States in 1987 and prohibited the two countries from producing and deploying intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles.
In February 2019, Washington began the procedure for withdrawing from the INF Treaty, accusing Moscow of not fulfilling the points of the document due to the presence of the 9M729 missile, whose flight range allegedly exceeds permissible norms. In Russia, these accusations were rejected and expressed readiness to demonstrate the missile that raised questions, but in the United States they did not meet halfway.
