Putin suspends US nuclear treaty, vows to keep fighting in Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin suspends Moscow’s participation in a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Washington during a speech in which he accuses the West of escalating the Ukraine conflict.

In his scathing state of the nation address to Russian lawmakers, Putin also vows that Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine ahead of the first anniversary of the military campaign.

Accusing Western powers of wanting “to be done with us once and for all,” he says Russia was “forced” to suspend the New START treaty but would not pull out of the agreement altogether.

The 2010 treaty is the last major US-Russia arms control pact still in force but it has frayed in recent years, with accusations from Washington that Moscow was not complying with it.

Referring to the conflict in Ukraine, Putin says: “Step by step, we will carefully and systematically solve the aims that face us.” He says it is “impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”

“The responsibility for fueling the Ukrainian conflict, for its escalation, for the number of victims… lies completely with Western elites,” Putin says.