Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with his security council Monday that Moscow will respect the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for one year past its expiration date.
Putin said Moscow would adhere to the limits of the nuclear arms reduction treaty for one more year if the United States does the same.
“To avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is justified to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current, rather turbulent period,” Putin said in remarks televised in Russia. “Therefore, Russia is prepared to keep adhering to the central quantitative limitations of the New START Treaty for one year after Feb. 5, 2026.”
The New START Treaty, a treaty between the U.S. and Russia signed in 2010 by then-presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and 800 non-deployed launchers and bombers.
The treaty could originally only be extended once by five years, which Putin and then-president Joe Biden implemented in 2021 to set the expiration date to Feb. 4, 2026.
In a White House press conference, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty good,” but President Donald Trump would still need to address the offer himself.
Trump said in July he wanted the U.S. to maintain self-imposed limits of the treaty even after it expired.