Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia will maintain the limits on its nuclear arsenal imposed by the now-expired New START treaty if the US does the same.
New START was the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia and limited the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy at 1,550 and the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers at 800.
Before the treaty expired last week, Russia proposed a mutual agreement to extend the limits for another year while the two sides negotiated a replacement, but the Trump administration didn’t respond. Lavrov’s comments suggest that the offer or a tacit understanding is on the table, provided the US doesn’t increase nuclear deployments.
“The initiative put forward by President Putin for the parties to the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms to continue voluntarily observing its central quantitative limits was left without an official response from the American side,” Lavrov told Russia’s State Duma, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“We proceed from the understanding that the moratorium announced by President Putin remains in force on our side, but only as long as the United States does not exceed the above limits. We will act responsibly and in a balanced manner based on daily analysis of US military policy and the overall strategic environment,” he added.
President Trump has said that he doesn’t want to extend New START but wants to negotiate a new treaty. His administration is pushing for China to be included in any future deal, but Beijing says it doesn’t want to be part of a trilateral arms control treaty with Moscow and Beijing, since its nuclear arsenal is much smaller.
