MOSCOW (AP) – The Kremlin on Friday received a proposal from U.S. President Joe Biden to extend the last remaining nuclear weapons control treaty between the two countries, which will expire in less than two weeks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia defends the extension of the pact and hopes to see details of the US proposal.
The White House said Thursday that Biden proposed to Russia a five-year extension of the new START treaty.
“We can only welcome the political will to expand the document,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “But it will all depend on the details of the proposal.”
The treaty, signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads deployed and 700 missiles and firefighters deployed and provides for on-site inspections to verify compliance. It expires on February 5th.
Russia has long proposed extending the pact without any conditions or changes, but the administration of President Donald Trump waited until last year to start talks and made the extension dependent on a set of requests. Talks stalled and months of negotiations have not been able to close the gap.
“Certain conditions have been put in place for the extension and some of them have been absolutely unacceptable to us, so let’s first look at what the US has to offer,” Peskov said.
Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, also hailed Biden’s proposal as an “encouraging step.”
“The extension will give both parties more time to consider possible additional measures aimed at strengthening strategic stability and global security,” he tweeted.
Biden indicated during the campaign that he was in favor of preserving the New START treaty, which was negotiated during his tenure as U.S. vice president.
Talks over the extension of the treaty were also clouded by tensions between Russia and the United States, which have been fueled by the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and other irritants.
Despite the proposed enlargement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden remains committed to demanding that Russia “be held accountable for its reckless and contradictory actions,” such as alleged participation in the event. of Solar Winds piracy, 2020 electoral interference, chemical poisoning of the opposition. figure Alexei Navalny and widely reported allegations that Russia could have offered rewards to the Taliban for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan.
In Psaki’s question, Peskov reaffirmed Russia’s denial of involvement in such activities.
After Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, New START is the only remaining nuclear weapons control agreement between the two countries.
Proponents of arms control have strongly called for the preservation of New START, warning that its lag would eliminate any control of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.
Last week, Russia also stated that it would continue in the United States to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty that allowed surveillance flights over military installations to help build trust and transparency between Russia and the West.
Although Russia has always offered to extend the new START for five years (a possibility provided for in the pact), Trump claimed to put the United States at a disadvantage and initially insisted that China be added to the treaty, an idea that Beijing reject outright. The Trump administration then proposed extending New START for just one year and also tried to expand it to include limits on the battlefield’s nuclear weapons.
Moscow has said it remains open to new talks on nuclear weapons with the US to negotiate future limits on future weapons, but has stressed that preserving the new START is essential for global stability.
Russian diplomats have said the future heavy Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile from Russia and the Avangard hypersonic planning vehicle could be counted along with other Russian nuclear weapons under the treaty.
The Sarmat is still in development, while the first missile unit armed with the Vanguard went into operation in December 2019.
The Russian military has said the Vanguard is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and could make abrupt maneuvers on its way to a target to avoid missile defense systems. It has been installed on existing Soviet-made intercontinental ballistic missiles instead of older-type warheads, and in the future could be installed on the more powerful Sarmat.