Pre-requisites for new nuclear arms race created after US withdrew from ABM Treaty - Putin

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. Washington’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) created pre-requisites for a new arms race, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the annual news conference on Friday. "The pre-requisites for a new arms race were created after the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," Putin said. "At a time when one party has unilaterally walked out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and declared that it will be creating an anti-nuclear umbrella, the other side will have to either consider creating a similar umbrella, although I am not certain that it should do so, because the effectiveness of this program is rather doubtful, or to create effective means of piercing that anti-missile defense and upgrading its nuclear attack weapons, which we have been doing with success," Putin said. "It was not us who thought up all this. We have to meet the challenge." Putin said Russia is doing so but in the framework of the agreements. "I want to stress: we are not violating anything, including the New START, and all the agreements on the amount of delivery vehicles and warheads are fully implemented," he said, adding that most recently "the US observers were in our plants and looked at how the missiles and nuclear warheads are manufactured." Putin voiced regret that instead of continuing this cooperation, the US decided to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. Read more