US destroyed international stability, Russia Duma's speaker says

Russian officials on Wednesday (Feb 22) blamed the US and the West for President Vladimir Putin's decision to suspend Moscow's participation in the New Start treaty, as Russia's parliament was set to rubber-stamp the move.

Putin announced the suspension in a speech on Tuesday, as US President Joe Biden vowed to keep supporting and standing up for Ukraine as the first anniversary of the Russian aggression nears.

Ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said the move was a "long overdue" response to the US and Nato effectively declaring war on Russia.

"This decision was forced on us by the war declared by the US and other Nato countries on our country. It will have a huge resonance in the world overall and in the US in particular," Medvedev said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Medvedev also called for the nuclear arsenals of Britain and France to be included in future arms control agreements between Russia and the West.

Russia's parliament is expected to rubber-stamp the move to suspend the treaty, possibly as early as Wednesday.

The head of Russia's Duma, the lower house of parliament, also blamed the US for the breakdown.

"By ceasing to comply with its obligations and rejecting our country's proposals on global security issues, the US destroyed the architecture of international stability," Vyacheslav Volodin said in a statement.

Russia's moves have sparked concern in Washington and European capitals.

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Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees Russia's arms control diplomacy with the US, said on Wednesday that the possible resumption of the treaty depended on Washington, as he also said Moscow was keeping a close eye on Nato's other nuclear powers, Britain and France.

"We will obviously pay special attention to what line and what decisions London and Paris are taking, which can no longer, even hypothetically, be considered outside of the Russian-US dialogue on nuclear arms control," the TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

He said there was currently no direct dialogue between Moscow and Washington on nuclear issues and it was unknown whether it would resume.

Russia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday evening it would continue to abide by the limits on the number of warheads it can deploy and stood open to reversing its decision.