By Anietie anii-bassey
The Kremlin said Thursday it regretted the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the United States, a milestone that for the first time in more than half a century leaves the world’s two largest nuclear powers without formal limits on their deployed strategic arsenals.
The lapse of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, has alarmed arms control specialists who warn that the disappearance of legally binding caps and verification measures could open the door to an unconstrained nuclear competition at a moment of already heightened global tensions.
Russian officials said President Vladimir Putin had discussed the treaty’s expiration a day earlier with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, pointing to what Moscow described as Washington’s failure to respond to a proposal from Putin last year to extend the pact’s core limits temporarily.
Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin told Xi that Russia would act “in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation,” while preparing for a future without the treaty’s constraints.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow views the treaty’s expiration “negatively” and considers it a setback for strategic stability. Russia, he added, intends to preserve a “responsible, thorough approach” to nuclear weapons policy while being guided “primarily by its national interests.” Peskov also stressed that the Kremlin remains open to discussions if it receives what he called constructive proposals from Washington.
“If we receive constructive responses, we will certainly conduct a dialogue,” he said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry struck a dual note of caution and openness, warning that with the treaty gone Moscow “remains ready to take decisive military-technical measures to counter potential additional threats to national security,” while also leaving the door open to diplomacy.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, the ministry said Russia was still prepared to pursue political and diplomatic solutions to stabilize the strategic balance, provided conditions exist for what it described as equal and mutually beneficial talks.
Even as New START formally expired, both countries signaled tentative interest in restoring some channels of communication. U.S. military officials in Europe said Washington and Moscow agreed Thursday to reestablish high-level, military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior representatives in Abu Dhabi.
That channel had been suspended in 2021, as relations deteriorated sharply ahead of Russia’s full-scale military operation in Ukraine in February 2022.
Signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, New START limited each side to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 operational intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. The treaty also created an extensive system of data exchanges and on-site inspections designed to verify compliance.
Originally due to expire in 2021, the agreement was extended for five additional years in one of the final acts of nuclear diplomacy between the two governments before relations plunged to post–Cold War lows. Inspections, however, were suspended in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Putin announced that Russia was suspending its participation in the treaty, citing objections to U.S. inspection rights while Washington and its NATO allies openly supported Ukraine and declared their intent to defeat Russia militarily. At the time, the Kremlin emphasized that it was not formally withdrawing and pledged to continue observing the treaty’s numerical limits.
Last September, Putin went further, offering to abide by the caps for another year to buy time for negotiations on a successor agreement. He warned then that letting the treaty lapse altogether could prove destabilizing and fuel nuclear proliferation.
New START was the final remnant of a long chain of Cold War–era and post–Cold War agreements aimed at restraining the superpowers’ arsenals, beginning with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1972. Its expiration marks the collapse of that framework.
President Donald Trump has said he favors keeping limits on nuclear weapons but insists that China must be included in any future arrangement, arguing that Beijing’s expanding arsenal makes a bilateral U.S.-Russian pact outdated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed that view Wednesday, saying the administration believes “true arms control in the 21st century” is impossible without China’s participation.
Trump told a newspaper interview last month that he “feels strongly” China should be part of any extension or replacement agreement, adding that Beijing “should be a part of the deal.” During his first term, he unsuccessfully pressed for a three-way accord, an idea that Chinese officials have consistently rejected.
China reiterated that stance Thursday. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Beijing’s nuclear forces remain far smaller than those of either the United States or Russia and that China therefore would not take part in disarmament negotiations at this stage.
Lin added that China regrets the expiration of New START and urged Washington to resume dialogue with Moscow and respond positively to Russia’s proposal that both sides continue observing the treaty’s central limits for now.
Peskov said the Kremlin respects Beijing’s position, while Russian officials again argued that any broader multilateral negotiations would also need to include other nuclear-armed NATO states, particularly France and the United Kingdom.
Arms control advocates reacted with deep concern, warning that the disappearance of New START’s ceilings and transparency measures could trigger a costly and dangerous buildup among the world’s leading nuclear powers.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said that if the Trump administration continues to avoid substantive nuclear talks with Russia and moves to expand the number of deployed U.S. strategic weapons, Moscow would almost certainly respond in kind. Such a cycle, he added, could also spur China to accelerate its own modernization in an effort to maintain a credible retaliatory capability.
“That kind of scenario could lead to a years-long, dangerous three-way nuclear arms buildup,” Kimball said, arguing that renewed diplomacy is urgently needed to prevent a return to Cold War–style competition in an even more complex and volatile global landscape.
As diplomats weigh next steps, the end of New START leaves the nuclear order in uncertain territory, with decades of arms control architecture now reduced to political statements and tentative gestures, rather than binding commitments backed by inspections and verification.
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