MOSCOW. Nov 11 (Interfax) - The United States' reluctance to work on the extension of the New START Treaty and its possible withdrawal from the Treaty on Open Skies heighten risks for the humankind and leads to the reduction of the threshold of applying nuclear weapons, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev said.
"All of this negatively affects the predictability of the military strategic situation, specifically leads to lowering the threshold of using nuclear weapons, and, respectively, largely increases the risks for the whole of the humankind," Patrushev said in an article published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
"The U.S. walkout from the ABM Treaty in 2002, Washington's unwillingness to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and work on the extension of the Treaty for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, as well as the White House's recent statement on the preparations to a pullout from the Treaty on Open Skies can be identified alongside the collapse of the mentioned treaty [the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]," Patrushev said.