Putin says Russia is willing to abide by nuclear arms deal with the US for 1 year after it expires

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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared his readiness to adhere to nuclear arms limits for one more year under the last remaining nuclear pact with the United States that expires in February, and he urged Washington to follow suit.

Putin said allowing the New START agreement signed in 2010 to expire would be destabilizing and could fuel proliferation of nuclear weapons. His televised remarks came at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and the West, and with concerns rising that fighting in Ukraine could spread beyond its borders.

“To avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is justified to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current, rather turbulent period,” Putin said while speaking from the Kremlin. He said Russia is prepared to stick by the treaty's limits for one more year after it expires on Feb. 5, 2026.

Arms control advocates long have voiced concern about the treaty’s looming expiration and the lack of dialogue to secure a successor deal, warning about the possibility of a new nuclear arms race and increased risk of a nuclear conflict.

Putin said maintaining limits on nuclear weapons could also be an important step in “creating an atmosphere conducive to substantive strategic dialogue with the U.S.”

The New START, signed by then U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The pact also stipulates the need for on-site inspections to verify compliance, although inspections were halted in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.

The treaty was originally supposed to expire in 2021, but was extended for five more years.

Putin emphasized that Russia expected the U.S. to follow its example and stick to the treaty’s limits.

“We believe this measure will only be viable if the United States acts in a similar manner,” Putin said.

Daryl G. Kimball, the director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, welcomed Putin’s statement on X as “an important and positive move.”

He and other arms control experts long have prodded Moscow and Washington to quickly reach an interim deal to maintain existing nuclear weapons limits.

“More nuclear weapons will not make anyone safer,” Kimball said in a commentary earlier this month. “By agreeing not to exceed the current strategic nuclear limits, they could reduce tensions, forestall a costly arms race that no one can win, create diplomatic leverage to curb the buildup of China’s arsenal, and buy time for talks on a broader, more durable, treaty."

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he and Putin talked about nuclear weapons during their summit in Alaska last month. Asked to comment in July on a looming expiration of the New START, Trump noted “that is a big problem for the world, when you take off nuclear restrictions.”

In his televised comments, Putin instructed Russian agencies to “closely monitor relevant American activities, particularly with regard to the strategic offensive arms arsenal.” Among the concerns he cited were any preparations by the U.S. to deploy missile interceptors in space.

Such a move would compel Russia to “respond accordingly,” he said.

In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation in the New START treaty, saying Russia couldn't allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal.

At the same time, Russia has emphasized that it wasn't withdrawing from the pact altogether and pledged to respect the caps on nuclear weapons set under the treaty and keep notifying the U.S. about test launches of ballistic missiles.

Another key U.S.-Russian nuclear arms pact was terminated in 2019. That was the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed in 1987 and banned land-based missiles with a range between 500-5,500 kilometers (310-3,400 miles).

As tensions between Russia and the West have escalated over the conflict in Ukraine, NATO allies in Europe have recently accused Russia of what they said are provocations, including Russian drones in Polish airspace and fighter jets in Estonian airspace.

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