Washington has not presented a single shred of evidence to Moscow that might prove Russia is in breach of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty and at the same time refused to discuss its own violations, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told the Russian mass media in an interview, APA reports citing TASS.
"I am unable to mention a single instance [of a violation] or piece of evidence they [the US] presented to us. There has been nothing of the sort," Patrushev said when asked if the United States had presented any proof of Moscow’s violations of the treaty.
"We held meetings with our US counterparts. I met with [White House National Security Adviser John] Bolton. Russia’s president [Vladimir Putin] received him, too. We discussed that but received no evidence," Patrushev pointed out. In his opinion, Washington "needed a pretext for pulling out of the treaty, and they found such a pretext for themselves and their partners." "But we do not know anything. We do not know what we have breached. We know what the Americans have violated and we pointed to these three issues: missile launchers, target missiles and drones. But they refused to discuss their violations," Patrushev said.
He said that in accusing Russia of INF violations, the United States hinted at the missile 9M729. "I believe that they spoke about it with their partners," Patrushev said. He stressed that Moscow had invited Washington to take a look at the missile "behind closed doors" to get "thorough information about it" and see for themselves that this weapon does not violate the INF Treaty. "They refused," Patrushev noted. He recalled that after that Russia arranged for an open multilateral demonstration of this missile in Patriot Park, where many foreign delegations arrived, the United States did not participate in this event and advised its NATO partners against going there, too."
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