Russia on Monday offered to extend the limits on nuclear weapons set by a key treaty with the United States for one more year, but only if the US agrees to do the same.
The offer came from Russian President
Vladimir Putin, who said Moscow was willing to keep following the rules of the New START Treaty after it expires in February next year. The treaty limits the number of nuclear warheads both countries can deploy.
Putin said fully abandoning the treaty would be a “short-sighted step” and warned that without it, a dangerous arms race could be sparked.
“To avoid provoking a strategic arms race… Russia is prepared to continue adhering to the central quantitative limitations of the New START Treaty for one year after February 5, 2026,” Putin said in a televised meeting.
However, Putin made clear that Russia’s offer depends on the US acting similarly and not taking actions that upset the balance of nuclear forces.
The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by former US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It also allows on-site inspections to check compliance, but these inspections have been suspended since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Russia froze its official participation in the treaty in 2023 but has continued to follow the limits voluntarily.
Relations between the two countries have grown tense in recent years, especially following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin raised the alert level of Russia’s nuclear forces shortly after the invasion and signed a decree lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons last year.
Despite some easing of tensions since US President Donald Trump took office in January this year, no major talks on nuclear arms control have taken place.
The US and Russia together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.
(With inputs from agencies)
