February 23, 2023, 10:13 – BLiTZ – News
Military expert Alexei Leonkov told us what you need to understand about the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, START-3).
He noted that the document implies the inspection of US nuclear weapons, but after its extension. The analyst recalled that Washington had never let Russia in for these purposes.
He suggested that the reason lies in the “deplorable state of their nuclear forces, especially mine-based.” “Apparently, they didn’t want us to make sure that everything is not as rosy for them as they claim,” the speaker clarified in the material for RG.
At the same time, the Russian Federation allowed American inspectors to enter its bases, he continued. One of the first inspections took place at airfields with strategic bombers. Moscow counted “on a symmetrical inspection of their facilities stipulated by the contract, but it did not work out,” the author pointed out.
He warned that the nuclear arsenals of Britain and France “are in fact under the same control of the United States.” But there is no information about them in the contract.
Leonkov noted that the newest US-made nuclear warheads date back to 1991. To update the nuclear component, you need to make new charges and make sure they work, the observer explained.
According to him, with the help of computer simulations, it is impossible to fully understand the work of the charge, so Washington needs some real tests. Under such a scenario, Moscow will also begin to conduct “field tests of nuclear weapons,” the publicist emphasized.
He did not rule out that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation “has long ago received an order to prepare training grounds for such tests.” Russia can “experience anything – up to thermonuclear charges,” Leonkov noted. There are no restrictions on the power of the weapons being tested, he concluded.
Earlier, Academician Aleksei Arbatov predicted the US withdrawal from the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement about the suspension of Russia’s participation in it. Read more about this in the material of the BLiTZ.
