Putin offers to extend nuclear arms treaty with US

2025-09-22 18:07:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to extend the New START treaty between Moscow and Washington - the only remaining nuclear arms agreement between the two countries - which is set to expire in February.

Speaking at a meeting with his Security Council advisers on September 22, Putin said that allowing the treaty to expire would have negative consequences for global stability.

"Russia is ready to continue to adhere to the main limitations of the New START treaty for another year after February 5, 2026 ," Putin said.

He added that the US should do the same.

"We believe that this measure will be applicable only if the US acts in the same way ," Putin said.

The treaty was signed in Prague in 2010 by then-presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev. The agreement limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It also provides for on-site inspections to verify that the agreement is being implemented.

Russia suspended inspections in August 2022, as bilateral relations deteriorated following the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. Putin said in February 2023 that Russia was suspending its participation in the pact, but Moscow stressed that it would continue to adhere to limitations on its nuclear arsenal.

Other bilateral arms control treaties, which oversaw the world's two largest nuclear arsenals, have collapsed due to disagreements between Washington and Moscow.

Since Donald Trump took office in January, Russia has signaled it is open to resuming nuclear dialogue with Washington. Putin has also suggested a new bilateral arms control agreement could be reached before he holds talks with Trump in Alaska in August.

Russia has consistently sought to have more talks with the US that go beyond efforts to achieve peace or a ceasefire in Ukraine, including bilateral issues. The idea seems to be to keep Ukraine in the background and to suggest that the US and Russia are global powers of equal weight.

There has been no immediate reaction from Washington to Putin's latest statements, but Trump has suggested that talks on reducing nuclear weapons should be expanded to include China, which Trump sees as the biggest strategic threat to the US. Trump has also said that talks on reducing nuclear arsenals should take place after an agreement is reached on Ukraine./ REL