WASHINGTON, January 27. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump should have agreed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) months ago, Jon Wolfsthal, former senior director at the US National Security Council for arms control and nonproliferation, said.
"I don't want to make it sound like this is simple, but this is a piece of low-hanging fruit that the Trump administration should have seized months ago," he said, commenting on the situation around New START and Moscow’s proposal to extend it. "Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, said that it would be a good idea for the United States and Russia to extend the limits under New START. <…> Trump, at the time, said [that it] sounded like a good idea. And then there was no staff work. Nobody was tasked to actually go and talk to the Russians about this," Wolfsthal pointed out at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists event.
The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the New START Treaty) was signed in 2010 and entered into force on February 5, 2011.
The document stipulates that seven years after its entry into effect each party should have no more than a total of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers, as well as no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and strategic bombers, and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and strategic bombers. The treaty was signed for a term of ten years, until February 5, 2021, with a possibility of a further extension upon the parties’ mutual consent.
In February 2021, Moscow and Washington extended the treaty, described by the Russian authorities as the golden standard in the sphere of disarmament, for the maximal possible five years.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21, 2023 that Russia was suspending its participation in New START but was not withdrawing from it. The president stressed that before returning to the discussion of the extension of the treaty, the Russian side wanted to understand how New START will take into account not only the US’ arsenals but also stockpiles of other NATO nuclear powers, namely the UK and France.
The treaty expires on February 5, 2026. Putin announced in September 2025 at a meeting with the Russian Security Council that Moscow is ready to continue adhering to the quantitative restrictions under New START for another year after its expiration. However, he noted that this measure would only be viable if Washington acted in a similar manner. Responding to a TASS question on October 5, 2025, US President Donald Trump called Putin's proposal a good idea.