President Donald Trump has rejected an offer from Vladimir Putin to voluntarily extend the caps on strategic nuclear weapons deployments after the treaty that held them in check for more than two decades expired. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the New START treaty was “badly negotiated” and “grossly violated,” calling instead for a new, improved agreement to be drafted by American nuclear experts.
The Russian president had proposed a one-year extension of the limits set by the 2010 New START treaty, which was the last arms control pact between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. The treaty allowed only a single extension, which Putin and former US President Joe Biden agreed to in 2021 for five years. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remained open to dialogue if Washington responded constructively.
New START was the final in a series of nuclear agreements dating back to the Cold War, providing numerical limits and inspection regimes that built trust. Security analysts warn that without a replacement, the risk of miscalculation increases, potentially spurring an arms race. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the treaty’s expiration as coming “at the worst time,” with the risk of nuclear use at its highest in decades.
Trump has said he wants a deal that includes China, but Beijing has declined negotiations. China expressed regret over the expiry and urged US-Russia dialogue. The White House said Trump would decide the way forward on nuclear arms control on his own timeline. Peskov confirmed the treaty expired at the end of Thursday.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the treaty in 2010, said it and its predecessors were “all in the past.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated both sides are free to choose their next steps, but Moscow is open to diplomacy while preparing “decisive military-technical countermeasures.” Ukraine called the expiry a tool of nuclear blackmail and an attempt to undermine global security.
