Russia says it awaits an answer from the US on nuclear treaty New START as it ticks down

MOSCOW – Russia on Dec 10 said it was still awaiting a formal answer from Washington on President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to jointly stick to the last remaining Russian-US arms control treaty, which expires in less than two months.

New START, which runs out on Feb 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

Mr Putin in September

offered to voluntarily maintain for one year

the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Mr Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea”.

“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Mr Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.

“We are waiting for a response,” Mr Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.

Russia and the US together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87 per cent of the global inventory of nuclear weapons.

China is the world’s third-largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.

Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernise their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade – not least over the enlargement of NATO and

Moscow’s war in Ukraine

– the treaties have almost all crumbled away.

Each side blames the other.

In the new US National Security Strategy, the Trump administration says it wants to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia” – shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.

Ms Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief US negotiator for New START, said in an article for the Arms Control Association in December that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.

“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese build-up without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Ms Gottemoeller said. REUTERS