VLADIVOSTOK, September 5. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he offered his US counterpart Donald Trump the opportunity to purchase the newest kinds of weapons from Russia, including hypersonic ones.
Putin told the plenary session of the fifth Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) on Thursday that at the last meeting with his American partners in Osaka, Japan "the issue was raised as to how and in what way it would be possible to count Russian modern weapons, including the hypersonic missile systems, into the common agreements, considering that so far not a single country in the world possesses these weapons, not even the US."
"I told Donald the following: "if you want, we can sell you some and this way we will balance everything out. But truth be told, they are saying that they will soon produce it themselves.
Perhaps they will, but why waste money when we already have spent some and can get something back, and at the same time not harm our security but rather create a situation where there is a balance," Putin elaborated.
The Russian leader added that Moscow is willing to talk about "how and what can be taken into account, speaking about the types of carriers and number of warheads."
"This is a special issue, but Russia is ready for this dialogue in any case. However, we have not received a clear answer from the Americans," the Russian president pointed out.
He underlined that the US had remained mum on a Russian proposal to contain the looming arms race. Putin recalled that Washington had not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and on top of that, there is talk about plans to deploy weapons into outer space.
"These are very serious challenges that humanity might face. Imagine that each of us, which means each of them as well, has a certain kind of weapon hanging over our heads and constantly floating on a geostationary orbit, it can also be nuclear weapons. This can truly change the situation in the global security sphere. However, while our American partners are silent about all our proposals in the sphere of disarmament and containing the arms race, there’s nothing new here," he concluded.
