A senior Russian official said Monday that the outlook of extending or replacing the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia does not look good.
The New START treaty limits the number of nuclear warheads and delivery systems the two powers can deploy, and it is due to expire on February 5, 2026. There’s no sign that the two sides are working on a replacement treaty.
“As for our dialogue with the US in the area of strategic stability, including the situation concerning the post-New START period, it does not look promising,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, according to the Russian news agency TASS. “On February 5, 2026, the pact expires and after this it will not exist.”
In 2023, Russia said it was suspending participation in New START, citing US support for Ukrainian attacks on Russian facilities housing nuclear weapons. While the inspection aspect of the treaty hasn’t been implemented, both sides said they would continue to abide by the limits set by the treaty. However, once New START expires, there will be no constraints on the number of nukes the US and Russia can deploy.
President Trump recently said he wanted to work with Russia and China on “denuclearization.” During the previous Trump administration, the US tried to get China involved in trilateral talks with the US and Russia despite Beijing having a significantly smaller nuclear arsenal. Russia’s response to the idea was that France and the UK, two US-allied nuclear powers, should also be involved.
“First of all, we all remember how Washington’s policy line was shaped in that field during Donald Trump’s first presidency. The US side wanted to shift the conversation to a trilateral format. We responded by saying that trilateral was not enough and proposed a five-party discussion,” Ryabkov said.
The previous Trump administration also withdrew from two key arms control treaties with Russia: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibited medium-range land-based missiles, and Open Skies, which allowed unarmed surveillance over each signatory territory.
Russia has also linked the prospect of arms control talks with the US to the proxy war in Ukraine. In October 2024, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “not possible” to hold such talks in the face of the US’s “hostile” policies toward Moscow.
Ryabkov said that talks could happen once there’s been a “shift” in US policy but said that “hasn’t happened yet” despite Trump’s calls for the war in Ukraine to end.
