MOSCOW — The Kremlin said Thursday it regretted the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States, while President Trump declared he was against keeping its limits and wants a better deal.
The New START treaty’s termination left no caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century, fueling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared his readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington followed suit, but Mr. Trump has ignored the offer and argued that he wants China to be a part of a new pact — which Beijing has rebuffed.
“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.
Mr. Putin discussed the pact’s expiration with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, noting the U.S. failure to respond to his proposal to extend its limits and saying Russia “will act in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation,” Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow views the treaty’s expiration “negatively” and regrets it. He said Russia will maintain its “responsible, thorough approach to stability when it comes to nuclear weapons,” adding that “of course, it will be guided primarily by its national interests.”
Mr. Peskov emphasized that “if we receive constructive responses, we will certainly conduct a dialogue.”
New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), signed in 2010 by then-President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers — deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.
The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Mr. Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying Russia couldn’t allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal. At the same time, the Kremlin emphasized it wasn’t withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.
In offering in September to abide by New START’s limits for a year to buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement, Mr. Putin said the treaty’s expiration would be destabilizing and could fuel nuclear proliferation.
New START was the last remaining pact in a long series of agreements between Moscow and Washington to limit their nuclear arsenals, starting with the SALT I in 1972.
Mr. Trump has indicated he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons but wants to involve China in any new treaty.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Mr. Trump has made clear “in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile.”
In his first term, Mr. Trump tried and failed to push for a three-way nuclear pact involving China. Beijing has balked at any restrictions on its smaller but growing nuclear arsenal, while urging the U.S. to resume nuclear talks with Russia.
“China’s nuclear forces are not at all on the same scale as those of the U.S. and Russia, and thus China will not participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations at the current stage,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Thursday.
