Russia says it will abide by the nuclear arms limits set by the New START Treaty as long as the United States does

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat said Wednesday that Moscow will adhere to the limits of the latest nuclear arms agreement with the United States that expired last week as long as it sees Washington doing the same.

The New START treaty expired on February 5, leaving no restrictions on the two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than half a century, raising fears of an unrestrained nuclear arms race.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last year that he was willing to abide by the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington followed suit, but US President Donald Trump said he wanted China to be part of a new agreement – something Beijing rejected.

Statements by Russian legislators

Speaking on Wednesday in the lower house of parliament, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that although the United States has not responded to Putin’s offer, Russia will respect the New START treaty’s caps as long as it sees the United States abiding by them as well.

Lavrov told lawmakers, “The moratorium announced by the president will remain in place as long as the United States does not exceed these limits.” He added, “We will act in a responsible and balanced manner based on the analysis of US military policies.”

He added: “We have reason to believe that the United States is in no hurry to abandon these borders and that they will be adhered to for the foreseeable future.”

“We will closely monitor how things actually develop,” Lavrov said. He added: “If the intention of our American colleagues to maintain some kind of cooperation in this matter is confirmed, we will actively work to reach a new agreement and look into the issues that remained outside the strategic stability agreements.”

US-Russian talks in Abu Dhabi

Lavrov’s statement followed a report by Axios claiming that Russian and American negotiators discussed a possible informal agreement to monitor the agreement’s borders for at least six months during talks last week in Abu Dhabi. In response to a request to comment on the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that any such extension could only be official, adding that “it is difficult to imagine any unofficial extension in this area.”

At the same time, Peskov confirmed that Russian and American negotiators discussed future nuclear arms control in Abu Dhabi, where delegations from Moscow, Kiev and Washington held two days of talks on a peace settlement in Ukraine.

Peskov said: “There is an understanding, and they talked about it in Abu Dhabi, that the two parties will take responsible positions, and both parties realize the necessity of starting talks on this issue as soon as possible.”

Limits of the New START Treaty

The New START Treaty, signed by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, was the latest in a long line of agreements between Moscow and Washington to limit their nuclear arsenals, starting with the SALT I agreement in 1972.

The New START Treaty restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers deployed and ready for use. It was originally scheduled to expire in 2021 but has been extended by five years.

The agreement provides for comprehensive field inspections to verify compliance, although they were halted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were never resumed.

In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying that Russia could not allow US inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies had openly declared that they wanted to defeat Moscow in Ukraine. But the Kremlin also stressed that it would not withdraw from the treaty completely, pledging to respect nuclear weapons limits.

In September, Putin offered to keep the New START borders in place for another year in order to buy time for the two sides to negotiate a new agreement.

Even with the expiration of the New START Treaty, the United States and Russia agreed on February 5 to re-establish a high-level military dialogue after a meeting between senior officials from both sides in Abu Dhabi, US Military Command in Europe said. The link was suspended in 2021 as relations became increasingly tense before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Lavrov referred to the “excellent” relationship between Trump and Putin

Lavrov described the personal relations between Putin and Trump as “excellent,” saying that their “sympathy and mutual respect helped create the atmosphere that allowed them to reach an understanding” on specific issues during their summit in August in Anchorage, Alaska, including Ukraine.

In response to a question from lawmakers about the US attempt to seize control of Greenland, Lavrov said that the matter was not related to Russia, but noted that “in the event of militarization of Greenland and the creation of military capabilities there directed against Russia, we will take relevant countermeasures, including those of a military-technical nature.”

He described the US ban on Russia, China and Iran engaging in any dealings with Venezuelan oil as “discriminatory,” noting that Moscow expects Washington to develop relations on the basis of “mutual respect.”

Lavrov stressed that although the Kremlin has not yet launched a “strategic dialogue” with the Trump administration, “we are always open to such a dialogue.”

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Outrider Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content.