WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — In 2013, President Barack Obama proposed the United States and Russia reduce their nuclear arsenals by an additional one third of the levels agreed to in New START.
US officials have repeatedly publicized the offer, alleging Russia's unwillingness to engage in further nuclear disarmament talks.
"If you combine the British [nuclear] forces and the French forces, they together compose the same one-third of what you [the United States] are aiming to remove from our side," Kislyak said at an annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
Kislyak noted that the force composition "creates significant questions" for Moscow, as do recent US B-52 bomber training missions for NATO pilots from non-nuclear weapons states.
Between France and the United Kingdom, NATO has 525 nuclear warheads, which is approximately 33 percent of the 1,550 total deployed nuclear warheads Russia and the United States agreed to under New START.
