{"id":759617,"date":"2026-02-12T14:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/759617\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:04:14","slug":"russia-will-uphold-nuclear-weapons-limits-of-expired-treaty-foreign-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/759617\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia will uphold nuclear weapons limits of expired treaty, foreign minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">BERLIN \u2014 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the country\u2019s parliament that Moscow will continue adhering to the numerical limits of the expired New START nuclear weapons limitation treaty, provided Washington does the same.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Speaking before the State Duma on Feb. 11, he said: \u201cOur stance is that the moratorium declared by the president is still active, but only if the United States does not surpass the established limits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The statement comes less than a week after the treaty expired on Feb. 5, leaving the world\u2019s two largest nuclear arsenals without binding restrictions for the first time in more than half a century. New START, which capped deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side, was signed in 2010 and extended for five years by Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">President Donald Trump rejected Putin\u2019s proposal for a voluntary one-year extension of the treaty limits, calling New START \u201ca poorly negotiated agreement\u201d and saying he wanted to negotiate a modernized replacement that would include China. Beijing has consistently rejected joining trilateral arms control talks, arguing that U.S. and Russian arsenals far exceed its own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Meanwhile, some in Russia have pushed for the inclusion of the U.K. and French nuclear arsenals on the Western side of the equation. All major strategic arms reduction treaties to date have been bilateral. To address the stated concerns in Moscow and Washington, a multilateral agreement would be required, a process that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/nuclear-arms-control-beyond-the-u-s-and-russia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">experts say<\/a> could be exceedingly complicated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Russia suspended its participation in New START in February 2023, citing what it described as the \u201cunsatisfactory state of affairs\u201d with implementation, though Moscow continued to observe the numerical limits. The suspension ended inspections and data exchanges that had provided transparency into both arsenals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Lavrov\u2019s conditional commitment offers limited reassurance in an environment where verification mechanisms no longer exist. Without inspections or binding obligations, both sides must rely on intelligence assessments to determine compliance \u2212 a fragile foundation for nuclear stability as geopolitical tensions remain high over Ukraine and broader strategic competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__BioWrapper-sc-cy7r53-0 eATlTY a-body2\">Linus H\u00f6ller is Defense News&#8217; Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds a master\u2019s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN \u2014 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the country\u2019s parliament that Moscow will continue adhering to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7655],"tags":[5606,5607,5602,29410,8041,332,1757,49],"class_list":["post-759617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-russia","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-defense-news","tag-dn-dnr","tag-lavrov","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-russia","tag-trump","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116058041193424906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}