New START Expiry Looms; Moscow Warns of Nuclear Reality Shift
Moscow: Russia says it is prepared for a world without US-Russian nuclear arms control limits following the imminent expiration of the New START treaty, Moscow’s top arms control official said on Tuesday.
Unless a last-minute agreement is reached, the United States and Russia will be left without restrictions on their long-range strategic nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than half a century when New START expires on Thursday.
“This is a new moment, a new reality — we are ready for it,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control issues, during a visit to Beijing for “strategic stability consultations.”
Signed in 2010, New START caps the number of deployed strategic warheads for each side at 1,550. Last month, US President Donald Trump indicated he would let the treaty expire, and has not formally responded to a Russian proposal to extend the treaty’s limits for one more year. Ryabkov said, “The lack of an answer is also an answer.”
Analysts in Moscow and Washington have warned that the treaty’s expiration could remove warhead limits, undermine confidence and verification mechanisms, and risk triggering an unrestrained nuclear arms race.
The collapse of post-1962 arms control agreements has accelerated amid rising tensions over Ukraine and US concerns about China. While the US has suggested China join arms control discussions, Beijing has shown no willingness to participate. Ryabkov said Moscow respects China’s position on the matter.
Former US President Barack Obama, who signed New START in 2010 with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, urged Congress to act, warning that letting the treaty expire could erase decades of diplomacy and spark another arms race. Medvedev said the world should be alarmed if no understanding is reached, suggesting it could hasten the symbolic “Doomsday Clock.”
Ryabkov also warned that if the US deploys missile defense systems in Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO-member Denmark, Russia would need to take military measures in response.
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