Vladimir Putin has used a speech devoted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to rail against the West and announce that Moscow is suspending its participation in the last major nuclear arms control treaty with the US.
In the near two-hour address, which meandered from topic to topic, Mr Putin laid out a litany of well-worn grievances against Western nations – including blaming them for the start of the war in Ukraine and saying that they wanted to destroy Russia. “It’s they who have started the war. And we are using force to end it,” Mr Putin claimed.
On the New Start arms treaty, he said: “They [the West] want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and claim our nuclear facilities ... In this regard, I am forced to state that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.” He said that the treaty – which limits the number of nuclear warheads the world’s two biggest nuclear powers can deploy, and is due to expire in 2026 – cannot be separated from the war in Ukraine.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, decried the move, saying that “more nuclear weapons and less arms control makes the world more dangerous”.
The treaty allows joint monitoring of the nuclear arsenals possessed by the US and Russia, and limits each side to 1,550 warheads on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers.
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Mr Putin claimed, without citing evidence, that some people in Washington were thinking about resuming nuclear testing. Russia’s defence ministry and nuclear corporation should therefore be ready to test Russian nuclear weapons if necessary, he said.
“Of course, we will not do this first. But if the United States conducts tests, then we will. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed,” Mr Putin said. “A week ago, I signed a decree on putting new ground-based strategic systems on combat duty. Are they going to stick their nose in there, too, or what?”
Standing alongside Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell at a press conference held in Brussels after Mr Putin’s speech, Mr Stoltenberg said he “regrets” Russia’s decision over the arms treaty. The Nato chief rejected the idea that the West is trying to destroy Russia, saying Mr Putin had been the aggressor in Ukraine. “It is President Putin who started this imperial war of conquest,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
In a speech in Warsaw later in the day, US president Joe Biden said that the West “is not plotting to attack Russia, as Putin said today”. Mr Biden said Mr Putin could end the war in Ukraine “with a single word” by pulling Russian forces out of Ukraine.
Mr Putin’s warning about nuclear weapons is one of a number that Russian officials have given in recent months, but his decision to withdraw from the New Start Treaty marks an escalation, as Mr Putin seeks to persuade the West to back off from its involvement in Ukraine. Mr Putin acknowledged early in his speech that his country is facing a “difficult” situation.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, criticised Mr Putin’s decision to suspend participation in the treaty. “The announcement by Russia that it’s suspending participation is deeply unfortunate and irresponsible,” Mr Blinken said. “We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does. We’ll of course make sure that, in any event, we are postured appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies.”
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had also summoned United States ambassador Lynne Tracy over what it called Washington’s “aggressive course”, accusing the US of widening its involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
“In this regard, the ambassador was told that the current aggressive course of the United States to deepen confrontation with Russia in all areas is counterproductive,” the foreign ministry said.
In a later statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the country will continue to observe limits on the number of nuclear warheads it can deploy as outlined in the New Start Treaty, despite Mr Putin’s decision to suspend its participation. The ministry blamed the United States for Russia's decision to suspend the treaty, but said it was not opposed to resuming participation should the United States’ policy towards Moscow change.
China, whose top diplomat Wang Yi arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, has cautioned against any nuclear escalation of the war in Ukraine, though the US has said it is concerned that Beijing may be considering sending weapons to Russia.
During his speech, Mr Putin vowed to continue with Russia’s year-long war in Ukraine, insisting that it is “impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield”. He also sought to justify the war, saying it had been forced on Russia, and claimed that he understood the pain felt by the families of those who had fallen in battle. He also claimed that the Western sanctions regime would have no effect, saying that it hadn’t “achieved anything and will not achieve anything”.
“The people of Ukraine have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military and economic sense,” Mr Putin said, in front of an audience of legislators, state officials, and soldiers who have fought in Ukraine.
“They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly, because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country.”
Mr Putin’s speech was given short shrift in Ukraine, with a senior aide to Volodymyr Zelensky saying that the Russian president had lost touch with reality. “He is in a completely different reality, where there is no opportunity to conduct a dialogue about justice and international law,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to the Ukrainian president.
“Russia is at a dead end. In the most desperate situation. Everything that Russia will do next will only worsen its situation.”
