The Kremlin has warned that the world is heading into a "dangerous" period as New START, the last nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia, is set to expire on Thursday.
"In just a few days, the world will be in a more dangerous position than it has ever been before," top spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists at a daily briefing on Tuesday.
Earlier, President Vladimir Putin offered to extend New START, first signed in 2010, by another year.
Peskov said officials in Moscow "still haven't received a response from the Americans to this initiative."
If the treaty is not extended, the world's top two nuclear powers will "be left without a fundamental document that would limit and control these arsenals," he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in September that an extension of New START "sounds like a good idea," but indicated that he wants to include China in a new deal. So, too, has Putin called on France and the United Kingdom to be involved in a follow-up treaty.
New START, signed in Prague in 2010 by former U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart at the time, Dmitri Medvedev, restricts each side to 1,550 deployed warheads and 800 launchers and bombers. It also provides for a series of mutual onsite inspections.
In 2023, Putin accused NATO of seeking to attack Russia’s nuclear facilities and declared that Moscow would suspend its role in the pact. Officials later clarified that Russia would still abide by the numerical limits but would discontinue other parts of the agreement.
Putin said last year that it would be "a mistake" to "completely abandon the treaty's legacy."
The expiration of New START would mark the first time since the Reagan Administration nearly 40 years ago that the United States has been without a nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.
"If it expires, it expires," Trump told The New York Times in an interview last month. "We'll just do a better agreement."
AFP contributed reporting.
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