‘Information war’: Kremlin dismisses accusations of missile treaty violations
Top Russian officials have rejected accusations that Moscow violated an arms control treaty by deploying cruise missiles, saying that the people spreading the rumors were targeting the possible thaw in Russia-US relations.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia was observing all its international obligations and that none of its partners had accused Moscow of breaching any treaties.
"Russia has been and remains committed to its international commitments, including to the treaty in question," Peskov told reporters. "Nobody has formally accused Russia of violating the treaty," he said.
The comments came after US media reported that unnamed officials in the Trump administration had allegedly accused Moscow of deploying ground-launched cruise missiles in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The head of the Russian upper house Committee for International Relations, Senator Konstantin Kosachev, said on Tuesday that such media leaks were part of a wider information war being waged against Russia and everyone who supported the normalization of Russia-US relations.
“The main objective of this campaign is to prevent the new president [Trump] from making a U-turn over the Atlantic, I mean, to prevent him from reconsidering the transatlantic policies of the United States that are set at establishing the monopolar model of the world order,” the senator told reporters.
He added that in his opinion those behind the strategy were sure that US politicians and the general public must be kept in a state of constant fear from an imagined external threat.
Earlier this year Kosachev said that Moscow had no intention of reconsidering its defense treaties with Washington in exchange for the cancelation of Western sanctions. He said that the lifting of sanctions had no separate value and would certainly not allow for any sacrifices from Russia in the area of strategic security.
The comments came shortly after then President-elect Trump said in an interview with the Times and Bild newspapers that Western sanctions against Russia could be lifted in exchange for an agreement on nuclear disarmament.
