U.S. President Donald Trump (L) watches an air assault exercise with Army Major General Walter Piatt at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13, 2018. (AFP Photo)
MOSCOW, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United States has no reasons to depict Russia as a threat, the Kremlin said Tuesday after the latest U.S. defense bill stipulated measures to contain Russia's military development.
The U.S. defense budget was many times greater than that of Russia's and therefore it is groundless for Washington to portray Russia as a threat to anyone, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a daily briefing.
He also said that Russia's new strategic weapon systems unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in March do not violate related international agreements, including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) signed between Russia and the United States in 2010.
Russia has never failed to meet its obligations under international law and remains committed to them, Peskov said.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed the 716-billion-U.S. dollar National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law for the fiscal year 2019 beginning on Oct. 1.
According to the bill, Washington will move to ensure Russia's new strategic weapon systems comply with the New START, and it will continue military assistance to Ukraine.
The United States will suspend cooperation with Russia under the multilateral Treaty on Open Skies, which was signed in 1992 and went into force in 2002.
The treaty is one of the major confidence-building and arms-control measures after the Cold War. It allows unarmed observation flights over its member states to gather information about each other's military forces and activities.
