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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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The Kremlin said U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to extend the New START treaty, which limits strategic nuclear weapons and is due to expire in February.
Russia had suspended its participation in New START's verification processes in February 2023, as tensions flared with NATO over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, though it did not abandon the treaty entirely.
Putin has since proposed a voluntary one-year extension to the treaty's restrictions on strategic nuclear arsenals from its expiration on February 5, inviting the U.S. to do the same.
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The existential threat of nuclear war has hung over the conflict in Ukraine, with the world's two largest arsenals, in Russia and the U.S., on opposing sides, bringing fresh urgency to the control of weapons that have the potential to wipe out humanity.
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"Of course, we are waiting for a response to Putin’s initiative," Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said on Thursday, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
"We consider this a very important issue," Peskov continued, originally in Russian. "We believe that, naturally, a more advantageous document, a more advantageous treaty would be needed for everyone.
"But reaching such a treaty is a very complex process that is stretched out over time."
The White House has signaled that it will not extend the current treaty as the deadline approaches.
"If it expires, it expires," Trump said of New START to The New York Times on January 7. "We'll just do a better agreement."
New START Nuclear Weapons Limits
Under New START, parties are limited to 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
They are also limited to 1,550 nuclear warheads on those deployments, and 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers.
The treaty obliges parties to complex and technical verification processes, including inspections, to ensure compliance.
Russia's war in Ukraine has disrupted plans to negotiate an extension to the treaty, which came into force in 2011 under the Obama administration and was last extended in 2021 for five years in the early months of the Biden administration.
It is a successor to earlier nuclear arms control treaties between the U.S. and Russia and, before its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union.
Kremlin officials and their allies in state media have repeatedly touted Russia's nuclear weapons during the war, to induce fear and make clear the stakes if NATO's support for Ukraine leads to a direct confrontation between Western allies and Moscow.
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