Russian-U.S. Strategic Stability Talks To Be Held in Geneva In a Few Weeks

July 8, 2021 (EIRNS)—Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday that U.S.-Russia strategic stability talks will begin in a few weeks in Geneva.

“Very soon, in a few weeks in Europe, there will be a round of consultations between senior officials of the United States and Russia on this issue. We have to sit together, we have to realize what kind of threats we face,” he said.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be on our way to a compromise.... I hope that everything will be fine and our teams will reach a compromise,” he said when asked to assess the prospects of Russia-U.S. dialogue on arms control.

Regarding the June 16 summit between Presidents Putin and Biden, he said, “It seems to me that the positive results of the American summit in Geneva give us a fresh opportunity to stabilize relations of the two nations,” he said. He also declared that Russia has no time for a confrontation with the U.S.: “We are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and we have no time to quarrel with the United States.”

In the same interview he said Russia was not involved in cyber attacks against U.S. companies. “Regarding what you have just mentioned about the recent attack on the United States and other Western countries’ infrastructure, I would like to say that Russia didn’t participate in such attacks; Russia didn’t stay behind the curtain of such attacks,” he said. On July 6, the embassy issued a statement denouncing Bloomberg’s publication “about the alleged breach by ‘Russian government hackers’ of the computer systems of the Republican National Committee. ... There is no evidence that the attack took place.” The embassy statement recalled that during the Geneva summit,

“the topic of cybersecurity took one of the central places. An agreement was reached to resume expert dialogue on this important topic. We are confident that a professional discussion of all issues related to cyberspace, will allow specialists to jointly improve the security of the information infrastructure of our countries.”

Meanwhile, TASS reported July 7 that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “a mechanism for expert dialogue on cybersecurity issues would be launched soon, with the aim of discussing attacks, the overall level of cyber threats, and issues related to critical infrastructure.”