MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia will respond to US restrictions on the Open Skies Treaty, possible retaliatory measures are being discussed with the Russian Defense Ministry, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Wednesday.
"As has already been said by Foreign Ministry officials, it seems that the matter is about taking certain countermeasures by the Russian side. But before we announce anything on this issue, we will have to analyze the situation, with the participation of our military… to see what form we will respond to the Americans in. But I have no doubts that there will be a response," Ryabkov told reporters.
“We believe that the implementation of this agreement gives no unilateral benefits. This is a mutually beneficial, useful, necessary, important document which should be preserved. But the United States again demonstrated with this step that it wants to go down the path of pressure. Of course, the steps it needs cannot be worked out under pressure, and there will be no unilateral concessions on our part,” Ryabkov told reporters.
Meanwhile, on September 26, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US authorities were going to announce restrictions on Russian observation flights over the US soil within the framework of the Open Skies Treaty, beginning on January 1, 2018.
