■

High time to rearm: Moscow’s military build-up long overdue – Lavrov ― RT News

Russia’s investment in its military is not a sign of a looming new arms race but rather a long-overdue modernization, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT and the VGTRK media corporation.

“I don’t think we are on the verge of a new arms race. At least, Russia definitely won’t be part of it,” the minister said. “In our case, it’s just that the time has come for us to modernize our nuclear and conventional arsenals.”

Lavrov was commenting on the US plan to overhaul its nuclear arsenals, which was announced by President Barack Obama this week.

“The US nuclear arsenal is somewhat younger than ours, but perhaps it is also time for them to upgrade it. I just hope that the US will abide by the provisions of the New START treaty, which are legally binding,” Lavrov said. “It is fine to upgrade your stockpile, replacing old weapons with new ones, but there are certain restrictions on how many weapons you can have, and all these restrictions are still in place.”