Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the United States is taking its obligations under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) quite freely, RIA Novosti reports.

The diplomat recalled that the preamble of the treaty contains a number of provisions, for example, on the indivisibility of security, on obligations to carry out their activities as a partner, to establish links between strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons.

Ryabkov emphasized that all these provisions, prior to the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, became by and large the subject of de facto denial by the United States due to their hostile policy towards the Russian Federation.

Ryabkov also said that the United States is "shifting from a sore head to a healthy one", accusing the Russian Federation of failing to comply with the requirements under the START.