President Vladimir Putin, during a video address marking Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day, said that boosting the country’s nuclear forces was an “absolute priority” amid the expiry of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).
“The development of the nuclear triad, which guarantees Russia’s security and ensures effective strategic deterrence and a balance of forces in the world, remains an absolute priority,” Putin said in a video message.
Putin vowed to keep “strengthening the army and navy” and draw on military experience from the nearly four-year conflict in Ukraine. All branches of the armed forces would be improved, he said, including their “combat readiness, their mobility, and their ability to operate in all conditions, even the most difficult”.
Putin’s pledge came amid the first time since the 1970s that Moscow and Washington, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, are no longer restrained by any arms control pact.
The New START treaty, which curtailed deployed strategic warheads to 1550 each and included verification procedures, expired on February 5, after Russia suspended its participation in 2023 and the U.S. refused to extend it.
While Russia has pledged to maintain a “responsible” approach and respect limits as long as the Pentagon does it too, Putin’s vow to boost the Nuclear Triad signals potential escalation.
The New START Treaty was signed by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in Prague on April 8, 2010. This treaty superseded a 2002 treaty that had obligated Moscow and Washington to curtail their operationally deployed, strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012.
The New START Treaty called for further reductions in long-range nuclear weapons and provided greater specificity about different types of launchers.
The pact imposed the following central limits: no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads on those platforms and a combined cap of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
Both countries achieved these reductions by February 5, 2018, the deadline set seven years after the treaty’s entry into force, and subsequently maintained compliance with the limits until the agreement’s expiration on February 5, 2026.
The pact provided for twice-yearly exchanges of data and ongoing mutual notification about the movement of strategic nuclear forces. It also mandated short-notice, on-site inspections of missiles, warheads, and launchers covered by the treaty, providing valuable and stabilizing insights into the other’s nuclear deployments.
Originally signed for 10 years, the New START Treaty was extended for a final five-year period in 2021.
It may be noted that Russia officially suspended its participation in the verification processes in February 2023 due to tensions over Ukraine. It blocked on-site inspections and data exchanges, effectively terminating the treaty’s verification mechanism.
Despite blocking the verification process, Russia claimed it would still abide by the numerical limits envisaged under the treaty.
It continued to provide each side with critical insight into the other’s activities, thereby imposing constraints that led to the world’s nuclear stockpile shrinking from around 70,400 warheads in 1986 to 12,500 today, first through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and then through New START.
These restraints no longer exist, meaning Russia and the U.S. could expand their deployed warheads by 60% and 110%, respectively, within a matter of months.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to amplify missile defence capabilities, including against nuclear weapons, under the ‘Golden Dome’, and Putin’s revelation of two new weapons systems – the Burevestnik nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered cruise missile and the Poseidon nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered undersea drone, could further amp up the weapons race.
Last September, Putin proposed that the two countries agree to mutually observe New START’s three numerical limits—700 deployed strategic ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, 800 deployed or non-deployed strategic ballistic missile launchers and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, and 1,550 warheads on deployed strategic delivery systems—for one additional year, that is, until February 2027.
Then, in November, a Russian foreign ministry official suggested that Moscow was willing to voluntarily extend the limits further.
On his part, President Trump had said in July last year that he did not want New START to expire. When Putin spoke about extending New START, Trump told reporters, “It sounds like a good idea to me.”
However, in November 2025, President Trump further complicated matters by insisting that any future agreement must include China as a full participant.
Earlier, Donald Trump asserted that a new pact to replace or succeed New START could not meaningfully constrain global strategic risks without addressing Beijing’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, which could reach 1,000 by 2030.
Trump called the trilateral approach critical for a “better” and more comprehensive deal, effectively raising the bar for negotiations: Russia had shown a willingness to discuss extensions, but Beijing has consistently rejected joining such talks, citing the vast disparity in nuclear arsenals.
Trump’s demand to include China has been widely viewed as a major obstacle.
With AFP Inputs
