Statement of the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and Other International Organisations in Geneva Gennady Gatilov at the Plenary Meeting of the Conference on Disarmament, May 27, 2025

Unofficial translation

Dear Madam President,

On 8 May, the Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on Global Strategic Stability was signed in Moscow in relation to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War and of the founding of the United Nations. The Statement has been circulated as an official document of the Conference on Disarmament – CD/2452. I encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with its content, which is directly relevant to the mandate and practical activities of our forum.

The Statement reflects the views of Russia and China on maintaining and strengthening global strategic stability in the current geopolitical environment. It contains the basic principles and approaches that will guide the two States in their efforts to improve the situation in the sphere of international security and to facilitate progress in the important arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation tracks. This should contribute, inter alia, to the returning of the Conference on Disarmament to full-fledged substantive activities in accordance with its mandate.

It is extremely important that the document emphasizes the commitment of the two countries to the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races dated 3 January 2022, and calls on all participating States to fully implement it in practice, which implies, among others, avoiding any military confrontation between nuclear-weapon States and seeking political and diplomatic solutions to existing disagreements.

The Statement of 8 May pays special attention to those negative factors that violate the principle of equal and indivisible security and are detrimental to international and regional security. It is worth mentioning among them:

- persistence of a Cold War mentality in a number of States;

- expansion of military alliances with the participation of some nuclear-weapon States close to the frontiers of other nuclear-weapon States;

- deployment outside national territories of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles capable of hitting targets in the territories of other nuclear-weapon States;

- creation and development of counterforce capabilities for «preventive» disarming strikes using, inter alia, nuclear weapons systems;

- plans of a number of countries to strengthen their arsenal of means to conduct combat operations in outer space; as well as

- use of commercial space systems to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign States and armed conflicts involving third countries.

Such actions, as it is emphasized in the Statement, are unacceptable as they undermine global strategic stability and fuel an arms race, thus increasing the confrontation at the regional and global levels. As a consequence, they create serious obstacles to the constructive consideration of nuclear arms control and nuclear disarmament initiatives, as well as to the progress in other areas of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

Madam President,

In the Statement the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China send a signal to the international community about the necessity to undertake collective efforts to address the accumulated problems, and they reaffirm their readiness to work in a coordinated and scrupulous manner in this regard. Such efforts include implementation and strengthening of the regimes of the most important international agreements such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention as well as the Chemical Weapons Convention. They also envisage the practical realization of a true multilateralism while preserving the leading role of the UN and its multilateral disarmament machinery in addressing and resolving issues in the sphere of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

In the context of the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament the two States attach particular importance to the need to launch negotiations as soon as possible on a new legally binding instrument based on the Russian-Chinese draft of the Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects, as well as to elaborate an international convention on the suppression of acts of chemical and biological terrorism.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that Russia and China intend to enhance the coordination of their approaches and to deepen the practical cooperation in order to strengthen global strategic stability, as well as to jointly address common challenges and threats in this sphere. At the same time our two States will encourage international initiatives aimed at resolving most pressing problems in the sphere of international security, provided, of course, that other countries are ready to have an equal and respectful dialogue.

Thank you for your attention.