Less than a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia was suspending participation in its nuclear weapons treaty with the United States, the Russian Federation’s State Duma unanimously agreed to formally suspend participation in the treaty.
The rubber-stamp approval by the parliamentary body of Putin’s announcement that Moscow was disengaging from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) also gives the Russian president exclusive authority to determine when—or if—it will resume participating again.
“As of today, Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty,” Putin said in a Feb. 21 national address to the Federal Assembly that was delivered nearly one year after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We’re not withdrawing from the agreement. We’re just suspending [our participation in] it.”
The New START pact, most recently extended by the United States and the Russian Federation in February 2021, obligates both nations to maintain the same number of long-range nuclear weapons in their arsenals that they had in 2018 through the treaty’s February 2026 termination.
New START is the latest iteration of five decades of strategic weapons accords between the world’s largest nuclear powers, beginning with 1972’s Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
In 2021, shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden took office, the treaty was extended by another five years.
On Jan. 31, the U.S. State Department told Congress in a report that Russia had ceased participating in the treaty since the start of the Ukraine invasion.
“Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.–Russian nuclear arms control.” the State Department said in its Russia New START Noncompliance Determination.
Putin Gets Total Control
In deliberating on the measure to formally cease participating in New START and giving Putin exclusive authority over Russia’s participation, Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Leonid Slutsky told the TASS News Agency that U.S. violations of the treaty give Russia no choice but to suspend participation.
“The collective West deliberately chose to worsen relations with Russia,“ he said. “Business as usual with the U.S. and the West in general is no longer possible as a matter of principle and in terms of arms control, which is inseparable from geopolitics.”
In his Feb. 21 address, Putin described Western demands that Russia open its nuclear weapons facilities to on-site inspections as “absurd,” while NATO allies were actively helping Ukraine strike Russia’s strategic airbases.
Before the Duma vote, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement claiming that it would continue to comply with New START’s “quantitative restrictions” and remain engaged with Washington in mutual notifications of ballistic missile launches.
The ministry stated that Russia will continue to surveil the United States and its allies “in the field of strategic arms reduction, as well as in terms of international security and strategic stability in general, assessing them for threats to Russian interests and the need to take additional measures.”
According to the Washington-based Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, Russia has about 5,977 nuclear warheads with 1,588 “deployed,” while the U.S. has 5,550, including 3,800 that are “active.”
Adam Morrow contributed to this report
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