MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax) - The State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously recommended on Wednesday that a bill suspending Russia's fulfillment of the New START be adopted, Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky said.
"The Committee has unanimously recommended that the State Duma adopt the presidential bill on the suspended fulfillment by the Russian Federation of the treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START)," Slutsky told reporters on Wednesday.
The bill was proposed to be considered at a plenary meeting on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia suspends the fulfillment of the New START but does not withdraw from the treaty.
"They want to deal us a strategic defeat and are meddling with our nuclear facilities. In this context, I have to declare today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms," Putin said in his address to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday.
Later on Tuesday, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that the bill suspending Russia's fulfillment of the New START had been submitted for consideration by the lower parliament house.