Kremlin says 'vacuum' emerging in arms control

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that a "vacuum" was emerging in the area of arms control as a result of poor relations between a number of states and said Russia was not to blame for the situation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to formally "denounce" an arms control treaty dating back to the end of the Cold War.

"... in this area of arms control, of strategic stability, a big vacuum is now developing, of course, which ideally would be filled urgently by new acts of international law to regulate this situation," Peskov told a regular news briefing.

"This is in the interests of the whole world. But for this to happen we need working bilateral relations with a whole array of states which at the current time are lacking," he said, adding that this was "not our fault".

The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) placed limits on the deployment of military equipment in Europe. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty in 2007 and "completely halted" participation in 2015.

Putin signed a decree this month symbolically denouncing the treaty following a debate and vote in the Russian parliament on the matter.

Russia has recently suspended a number of arms control agreements with Western states, including the New START treaty, which regulates nuclear proliferation, and has begun moving tactical nuclear weapons into neighbouring Belarus.

Relations between Moscow and Western countries have plunged to their lowest level since the Cold War after Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, in what he says is a "special military operation" to protect Russia's own security against pro-Western authorities in Kyiv.

Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia's actions constitute an unprovoked war of aggression aimed at seizing territory.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Gareth Jones)