The director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned Thursday that the United States is “trying to bring imbalance to the system of international security” in the nuclear sphere, according to state news agency Tass.
Speaking at a conference commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear bomb test, Sergey Naryshkin described the United States as a “Western totalitarian-liberal regime” that believes in its “impunity” while imposing its will on other countries and the nuclear sphere, Tass said.
Naryshkin, who has served as the SVR’s head since 2016, called out Washington’s withdrawal from nuclear agreements, including the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action restricting Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPA agreement in 2018.