Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday suspended his country’s participation in a treaty on nuclear arms reduction with the United States (US) during a speech in which he accused Western countries of escalating the Ukraine conflict.
In his scathing address to Russian lawmakers, Putin vowed that Russia would continue fighting in Ukraine ahead of the military campaign’s first anniversary.
Putin said Western powers wanted “to be done with us (Russia) once and for all”, and added Russia was “forced” to suspend the New START treaty but that it would not pull out of the pact altogether.
The treaty, inked in 2010, is the last major US-Russia arms control agreement still in force but it has frayed in recent years, with allegations from Washington that Moscow was not sticking with its conditions.
Russia blames West for escalation, vows to keep fighting
The Russian President was speaking a day after US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s capital Kiev in which he promised more arms deliveries for Ukraine, and ahead of a speech by Biden in Poland’s capital Warsaw.
With respect to the conflict in Ukraine, Putin said: “step by step, we will carefully and systematically solve the aims that face us”.
Putin maintained that it was “impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield”.
Furthermore, he stated, “The responsibility for fueling the Ukrainian conflict, for its escalation, for the number of victims… lies completely with Western elites”.
