The head of the Federation Council Commission on Information policy and Interaction with the media Aleksey Pushkov in his Twitter called the reason why the United States left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Earlier, the US special representative for arms control, Marshal Billingsley, said that the US did not see options for imposing a moratorium on the deployment of medium-and shorter-range missiles in Europe, which was previously banned by the IRNFT.
According to Pushkov, this result was expected, because that is why Washington withdrew from the Treaty. However, because of this, the Senator believes, European countries risk being "held hostage by the United States".
"This was to be expected: that is why the US withdrew from the IRNFT. The Europeans played along with the US and now risk becoming their hostages again, as, during the missile crisis of the 1980s, Pushkov said.
Last year, the United States withdrew from the IRNFT, accusing Russia of violating the Treaty. Moscow rejected these accusations and was ready to demonstrate the missile that raised questions and discuss the topic, but Washington did not meet them halfway and withdrew from the agreement unilaterally.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow was not against involving other countries in discussions with the US on strategic stability issues.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Federation Council
Based on materials from RIA Novosti