Kremlin: Russia willing to engage in security talks with US if Ukraine comes to negotiating table | Wilnesh News

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia was willing to engage in “comprehensive” security talks with the United States as long as they included the war in Ukraine.

“We are open to dialogue, but a broad, comprehensive dialogue covering all aspects, including those related to the conflict surrounding Ukraine and the involvement of the United States in this conflict,” Peskov said. According to Russian state news agency TASS.

His comments came in response to the possibility of talks with Washington on nuclear risks beyond the conflict in Ukraine. CNBC reached out to the State Department to ask if the White House was willing to negotiate the terms.

Russia has so far been largely isolated from Western-led diplomacy to resolve the conflict in Kiev and was not recently invited to a peace summit in Ukraine on June 15-16.

Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said separately in a Google Translate report telegram updates Talks with the United States on a new treaty to limit nuclear firepower are only possible if Washington ceases supplying weapons to Ukraine and prevents it from joining NATO.

Moscow has repeatedly stated that Kiev’s ambitions to join a Western-led military alliance are a threat to its own security and one of the reasons for Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Cannot join the alliance.

“Everything should have developed according to completely different scenarios,” Medvedev wrote, envisioning the United States entering a state of “complete insanity” over fears of Russian bomb and missile attacks.

“Let their entire elite worry! Let them tremble,” he wrote.

During his presidential term from 2008 to 2012, Medvedev was one of the signatories of the 2010 New START treaty along with then-White House leader Barack Obama. this protocolThe agreement, which came into effect in 2011 and was extended for another five years in 2021, provides for Russia and the United States to deploy no more than 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles and up to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads.

The agreement also stipulates that the two countries can conduct up to 18 inspections of each other’s strategic nuclear weapons bases each year to check compliance.

Russian President Putin Suspension of Moscow’s participation In February 2023, his country did not fully withdraw from the treaty. Russia has since rejected U.S. proposals for dialogue on nuclear arms control, while the White House has continued to support Ukraine militarily.

“We do not believe that the United States or NATO have the slightest interest in resolving the conflict in Ukraine and listening to Russia’s concerns,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in January. According to Reuters.

Putin has ramped up war rhetoric this year, warning Nato of the possibility of a nuclear conflict if the alliance proceeds with French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to deploy Western troops to Ukraine.

“(The West) has to realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on its territory. All of this does threaten the use of nuclear weapons and a civilization-destroying conflict. Don’t they understand?

The prospect of nuclear escalation weighs heavily on the NATO alliance’s tactical decisions as it considers its next steps in supporting Kiev. Russia inherited the vast majority of weapons of mass destruction from the disintegrating Soviet Union and possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal – as of March, military stocks and stockpiles totaled 5,580 warheads. According to the Federation of American Scientists. By comparison, the United States has a total of 5,044 warheads.