Russia told the United States that it would be ready to resume dialogue on strategic stability only if equality and the search for a balance of interests were ensured, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"In the fall of 2023, the United States sent us these signals, as always, unable to resist leaking this information to the media. It was an informal document that we responded to in February. They explained that it is impossible to talk about strategic stability in a situation when we are declared a strategic enemy who needs to be 'strategically defeated," Lavrov told Russia’s Izvestia newspaper.
He added that Russia "will be ready to resume the dialogue on strategic stability when mutual respect, equality and movement towards finding a balance of interests will be ensured."
Any current discussions about negotiating on such sensitive topics when "war has been declared on Russia," and the US is helping Ukraine "to point modern types of long-range weapons at our civilian and infrastructure facilities" are absurd, the minister concluded.