Russia’s ambassador says US hypocritical regarding Russia-Belarus military cooperation

Washington, Mar 28 (Representative) Recent statements by the US State Department in the context of Russian-Belarusian nuclear arms cooperation are a “vivid example of hypocrisy” in US policy, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday. On Monday, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel, commenting on Russia-Belarus collaboration, said that Moscow was damaging arms control and undermining strategic stability in Europe. “U.S. officials have an extremely short memory. It is Washington that has long been systematically destroying the legal basis of bilateral relations in strategic sphere… As for Mr Patel’s words regarding our President’s statements on the Russian-Belarusian cooperation in the military-nuclear sphere, it is a vivid example of hypocrisy of the American politics,” Antonov said while answering a reporter’s question, according to a statement released by the Russian Embassy.

The ambassador pointed out that Washington supports deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in five non-nuclear states, namely Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, and coordinates nuclear policy with the United Kingdom and France within NATO.On March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Minsk had agreed to station Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which does not breach Russia’s commitments to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Putin noted that Russia was not transferring its nuclear weapons to Belarus, but was doing what the US has been doing for decades – stationing its tactical nuclear weapons on the territories of its allies and training their crews to operate the weapons.