Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the US of “the highest level of toxicity and hostility” and a “pathological desire to harm our country.”

Maria Zakharova’s comments came after Russia pulled out of talks with US officials on nuclear arms control that were due to take place this week in Cairo.

In a Telegram post, Zakharova said that Moscow’s decision to postpone the talks was caused by the poor state of relations with Washington.

She writes: “In all areas, we see the highest level of toxicity and hostility from Washington. As part of the hybrid and total war being waged against us, almost every US move toward Russia is driven by a pathological desire to harm our country whenever possible.”

The United States on Monday accused Russia of “unilaterally” postponing meetings to discuss the only nuclear weapons treaty still in place between the two countries.

The talks were due to begin in Egypt, but a US State Department spokesman said the decision to postpone them was made by Moscow “unilaterally” on Monday.

“The United States and the Russian Federation were scheduled to convene a meeting of the Bilateral Advisory Commission on the New SNA Treaty in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss the implementation of the New SNA Treaty on Tuesday, November 29. The Russian side informed the US that Russia had unilaterally postponed the meeting and announced that it would propose new dates,” said the State Department spokesman.

The US is “ready to postpone the meeting as soon as possible, as the resumption of inspections is a priority to maintain the treaty as a stability tool,” the spokesman added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the talks had been postponed, but did not give a reason for the delay.

“The meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the Russian-American treaty on SNO, which was previously scheduled in Cairo (November 29 – December 6), will not take place on the specified dates. The event has been postponed to a later date,” the Russian agency reported.

What is the New SNO Agreement?

The new NPT Treaty sets limits on the number of intercontinental nuclear warheads that both the US and Russia can deploy. Under the treaty, Washington and Moscow conduct mutual inspections at the silos, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, inspections were suspended starting in 2020 and complications arose when the US tried to resume inspections earlier this year.

In early November, Biden administration officials saw a positive development in the fact that discussions on the new SNO treaty would resume, especially since they were supposed to take place against the background of suspicions that Moscow was preparing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

The new NPT treaty — the only one remaining in force that governs the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — was extended for five years in February 2021, in the first weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency. It provides that both sides allow mutual inspections of facilities related to nuclear weapons. However, these inspections have been suspended since March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and therefore the resumption of inspections was expected to be a topic of discussion at future Russian-American meetings.

The treaty limits both countries to deploying 1,550 nuclear warheads on launch systems including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and bombers.

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