Moscow: US and Russia ‘No Longer Bound’ by New START Limits as Treaty Set to Expire

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it believes the US and Russia are no longer bound by New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers, which is set to expire on Thursday.

“In the current circumstances, we assume that the Parties to the New START are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations in the context of the Treaty, including its core provisions, and are in principle free to choose their next steps,” the ministry said in a statement issued on Telegram on Wednesday, the day before the treaty officially expires.

The New START treaty caps the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy at 1,550 and limits the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers to 800. The Russian ministry’s statement noted that President Vladimir Putin had offered a mutual agreement to maintain those limits for another year to make room for diplomacy to negotiate a new treaty, but the Trump administration hasn’t responded to the proposal.