Commentary by the Information and Press Department on a remark made by the German Foreign Ministry spokesperson on short- and intermediate-range missile
German Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Andrea Sasse’s comment of October 26 has come to our attention. The comment followed President Putin’s statement on additional steps to de-escalate the situation in Europe in the wake of the termination of the INF Treaty, in which she expressed solidarity with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s earlier remark that Russia’s moratorium on deploying ground-based short- and intermediate-range missiles allegedly carries little credibility since Russia “itself withdrew from the INF Treaty.”
Such statements are a typical example of a biased and, in fact, knee-jerk reaction, when they do not even make an effort to understand what the Russian proposal is about. This does not reflect well on the German Foreign Ministry official, which, we think, should understand that matters of international security call for a thoughtful analysis, an understanding of the details and taking into account the actual state of affairs.
To begin with, we consider it important to point out that it is absolutely incorrect to talk about Russia’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty. We did not take any action to withdraw. The United States unilaterally withdrew from the treaty, which led to its termination. Russia, on the contrary, remained fully committed to it throughout the entire period of validity and, until the very last minute, made consistent efforts to keep the treaty alive. We had come up with a number of initiatives to settle the existing counterclaims. Once implemented, they could have saved the treaty.
It should also be kept in mind that Berlin insisted on us showing the 9M729 missile “if Russia has nothing to hide.” Specifically, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Sergey Lavrov this. However, when we organised a demonstration of the 9M729 missile, which went far beyond our obligations under the INF Treaty, German officials suddenly lost interest and never showed up. We believe this says a lot.
Now, the situation is repeating itself. On October 26, President Putin, in his statement, proposed considering specific options for mutual verification measures to remove existing concerns. In particular, we could discuss measures to verify the absence of short- and intermediate-range missiles at Aegis Ashore facilities with Mk-41 launchers at the US and NATO bases in Europe, as well as the 9M729 missiles that are of concern to the FRG and other NATO countries at the Russian Armed Forces’ facilities in the Kaliningrad Region.
Thus, we are talking about practical measures that would directly contribute to relieving the concerns of both Russia and NATO countries, including Germany. Given that we provided additional details about Russia’s proposals in this area, it was at the least strange to hear Berlin say that “there is nothing new” in this, all the more so with references to Jens Stoltenberg, who, it appears, is an indisputable authority on missile weapons for his German colleagues.
For starters, we urge you to at least carefully study and analyse the Russian initiative. We can describe our proposals in more detail. We remain open to constructive efforts to minimise the fallout of the INF Treaty termination based on the principles of equal and indivisible security and balanced consideration for the parties’ interests. We are counting on a manifestation of responsibility on the part of the NATO countries and, in particular, the FRG.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We had substantive and meaningful talks. We discussed the further development of the friendly and trustworthy relations between our countries in accordance with the agreements reached during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Riyadh in the autumn of 2019, and subsequent telephone conversations at top level.
Citizens of Russia, friends, The year 2020 will be over in just a few minutes. As we were welcoming it a year ago today, just like people around the world, we thought and dreamed of changes for the better. No one could have imagined back then what kind of trials would come our way. Now, it appears that the outgoing year has taken in the burden of many years. It was a difficult year for all of us, with worries and serious financial difficulties, bitter experiences and, for some, loss of the loved ones.
In 2020, Russia’s foreign policy focused on making better use of the potential for international cooperation in the interests of protecting national security, promoting the country’s socioeconomic development and encouraging approaches to current global and regional problems that meet the interests of Russia.
We consider the adoption by the European Union at the behest of its leading Member States of illegitimate restrictive measures against some of our fellow citizens under the pretext of their alleged involvement in the incident with Russian citizen Alexei Navalny to be absolutely unacceptable.
On October 1, we sent a request to Fernando Arias, Director-General of the OPCW and head of its Technical Secretariat, for technical assistance under Clause 38 (е) of Article VIII of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Two and a half months later, we are still waiting for a meaningful response. Their explanation is the absence of the German authorities’ permission for full-scale cooperation between the agency’s experts and competent Russian organisations to clarify the circumstances of what Berlin describes as the poisoning of the blogger. Russia’s suggestions regarding the main modalities of a planned visit of OPCW Technical Secretariat’s representatives to Russia have been rejected as well.
Moscow has taken note of a statement made by US Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn to the effect that Russia and the Assad regime are aggravating the problem of terrorism in Syria. He has accused Moscow and Damascus, without any substantiation, of involvement in the bombing and artillery raids on Idlib, which allegedly do not target terrorists but innocent civilians, infrastructure and armed opposition groups. He has also said that he believes that Russia and the Damascus regime are not doing enough to combat terrorism.
We were puzzled by the decision announced by the British government on December 10, 2020 to impose sanctions against three Russian individuals and a unit of the National Guard over the alleged human rights violations in the Chechen Republic.
Regrettably, the US authorities have decided to celebrate Human Rights Day, which is marked on December 10, by adopting new sanctions against Russian individuals and entities.
We have noted remarks by US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea, published on December 8 by the US NGO, the National Institute for Public Policy.
Kiev’s continued reluctance to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk Package of Measures and the Normandy format agreements, and Berlin and Paris’ connivance with the Ukrainian authorities’ destructive policy are a cause for concern.
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