Russia – (WARSOOR) – Vladimir Putin is concerned that civil unrest in the U.S. may make President Donald Trump and Washington unpredictable in its dealings with Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov said the uncertainty caused by protests fueled by the killing of George Floyd has caused Putin to doubt Washington’s commitment to joint agreements, a concern shared in other world capitals.
“He [Putin] is concerned about how much you can trust the agreements with his political counterpart and how predictable you can consider the actions of his political counterpart, in this case, the U.S. president,” Peskov told Channel One, in comments reported by the TASS news agency.
His comments come ahead of nuclear arms negotiations in Vienna starting on Monday involving special presidential envoy for arms control, Marshall Billingslea, and Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, according to Bloomberg.
They will be grappling with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which places limits on deployed nuclear warheads. The talks also aim to include China to limit all three countries’ nuclear stockpiles although Beijing says it will not attend.
Moscow wants to back an extension of the agreement with no pre-conditions but the Trump administration has delayed a final decision, which has increased concerns about a new nuclear arms race.
The talks in Vienna follow Trump’s decision last month to withdraw from the Open Skies agreement.
As previously reported by Newsweek, a State Department memo indicated that the Trump administration thought Moscow used the deal to photograph key infrastructure in Europe and the U.S., compromising American security.
Meanwhile, according to Peskov, Putin is worried that there may be no agreements with the U.S. regulating international security, which would make the world less stable.
“This is an absolutely dangerous situation for the whole world,” Peskov said. “It is important for President Putin to understand that he has a counterpart who can responsibly conduct a dialogue with him on how to correct this situation.”
Peskov said the Kremlin would not comment on the protests in the U.S. because it was an international matter, although Putin has said previously they show “deep domestic crises,” which he believed had started since Trump had taken office.
“When he won, and his victory was absolutely obvious and democratic, the defeated party invented all sorts of bogus stories just to call into question his legitimacy,” Putin said last Sunday, according to Tass news agency.
Source: Newsweek