With the US-Russia nuclear pact expiring on Thursday, President Donald Trump is renewing calls for a new stronger pact instead of extending the current agreement known as the New START treaty.
President Donald Trump on Thursday called for the United States and Russia to begin negotiations on a new nuclear arms treaty rather than extend a treaty that expired the same day, bringing an end to decades-long restrictions on nuclear warhead stockpiles.
“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 modernised Treaty that can last long into the future,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
New START, signed in 2010 and extended once in 2021 for five years by then US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and caps launchers and missiles. Its lapse would leave, for the first time in more than five decades, no binding restraints on the US and Russian nuclear arsenals.
With the treaty’s expiration, the last remaining limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals have been removed for the first time in more than 50 years. Trump has previously said he favours maintaining some form of nuclear weapons ограничения but has argued that any future agreement should also include China.
Russia, meanwhile, expressed regret over the lapse of the accord. The Kremlin said on Thursday it was disappointed by the expiration of the final nuclear arms pact between the United States and Russia, which has now left both countries without formal caps on their atomic arsenals for the first time in over half a century.
Arms control specialists have warned that the end of the New START Treaty could pave the way for an unchecked nuclear arms race. The agreement was the last surviving remnant of a series of arms control treaties that began during the Cold War, and its expiration has heightened concerns among experts and international organisations.
They caution that the absence of legally binding limits and verification mechanisms could increase mistrust, raise the risk of miscalculation and accelerate the development of new nuclear weapons.
Some reports have suggested that both Washington and Moscow are considering voluntarily adhering to the treaty’s limits for a limited additional period, potentially up to six months. However, it remains uncertain whether such an arrangement would be formally codified or function as an informal political understanding.
Analysts say even a short-term observance of New START’s constraints could buy time for wider negotiations, especially on restoring verification measures and reducing risks—areas that have weakened significantly in recent years.
With inputs from agencies
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