UN warns of nuclear risk as New START treaty expires
The expiration of the New START nuclear reduction treaty between Russia and the US is “a grave moment for international peace and security,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.
The strategic arms control treaty officially expired on February 5, and Moscow has not received any formal response from the US about renewing it, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
For the first time in over 50 years, the two largest nuclear powers have no limits on their arsenals, the statement by Guterres read. Fewer safeguards now exist against a “devastating miscalculation” compared to the Cold War and its aftermath.
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time – the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” Guterres warned. He urged Washington and Moscow to negotiate a successor framework.
New START was signed in 2011 and was last extended in 2021. However, the Ukraine conflict precipitated a deterioration. Russia blamed the Western backers of Kiev – including the administration of then-US President Joe Biden – for targeting its nuclear deterrence assets via proxy and suspending verification inspections.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to his US counterpart Donald Trump a one-year extension through mutual pledges to observe New START’s limits, allowing time for normalization talks and a potential replacement treaty.
Trump said he wants a “better” agreement that includes China. Moscow noted any expansion must also cover nuclear NATO members France and the UK.
In a Megyn Kelly interview this week, US Vice President J.D. Vance called nuclear proliferation a major threat and said the Trump administration will “work with China and Russia and any country… to try to draw down the amount of nuclear weapons that exist in the world.”
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev previously said the revival of great-power politics accelerated by Trump’s foreign policy pushes smaller nations to seek nuclear weapons because “humanity has not invented another way to guarantee self-defense and sovereignty with certainty.”
