Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov didn’t say why he believed the US would respect the boundaries set out in New START.
Printed On 11 Feb 2026
Russia has mentioned it’s going to abide by limits on its nuclear weapons as set out in a lapsed arms control treaty with america, so long as Washington continues to do the identical.
The New START settlement expired earlier this month, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear-armed powers with no binding constraints on their strategic arsenals for the primary time in additional than half a century and sparking fears of a brand new international arms race.
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In an deal with to parliament on Wednesday, Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned that Moscow was in no rush to begin growing and deploying extra weapons – backtracking on feedback made by his ministry final week that mentioned Russia thought-about itself now not certain by the treaty’s phrases.
“We proceed from the truth that this moratorium, which was introduced by our president, stays in impact, however solely whereas america doesn’t exceed the outlined limits,” mentioned Lavrov.
“We have now purpose to imagine that america is in no hurry to desert these limits and that they are going to be noticed for the foreseeable future,” he mentioned, with out explaining the idea for that assumption.
US President Donald Trump rejected a suggestion from Russian President Vladimir Putin to voluntarily abide by the boundaries set out in New START for an additional yr, saying he wished a “new, improved and modernised” treaty relatively than an extension of the outdated one.
Russia has additionally indicated it needs to strike a brand new arms management settlement.
Washington is pushing for China to be included within the talks, pointing to its rising nuclear arsenal.
In line with the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute (SIPRI), China’s nuclear arsenal is rising sooner than that of every other nation by about 100 new warheads a yr since 2023.
Nonetheless, Beijing refuses to barter with the US and Russia as a result of it says it has solely a fraction of their warhead numbers – an estimated 600, in contrast with about 4,000 every for Russia and the US.
Because the treaty expired, Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian mentioned that China wouldn’t be becoming a member of the bilateral arms-reduction talks.
Moscow says if China is introduced into a brand new deal, then so too ought to the US’s nuclear allies, the UK and France, which have 290 and 225 warheads, respectively.
New START, first signed in Prague in 2010 by the then-presidents of the US and Russia, Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, restricted either side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads – a discount of practically 30 p.c from the earlier restrict set in 2002.
Deployed weapons or warheads are these in lively service and obtainable for fast use versus these in storage or awaiting dismantlement.
It additionally allowed either side to conduct on-site inspections of the opposite’s nuclear arsenal, though these have been suspended throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and haven’t resumed since.
Russia in 2023 rejected inspections of its nuclear websites underneath the treaty, as tensions rose with the US over its practically four-year warfare in Ukraine.
Nevertheless it mentioned it had remained dedicated to the quantitative limits set down.
