Putin’s New START Announcement and the Future of Arms Control

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday that his country would suspend its participation in the New START agreement with the United States, throwing into question the future of the last remaining arms control accord between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. 

The treaty, which came into force in 2011, places limits on the number of intercontinental nuclear weapons that each country can have and was extended for an additional five years in 2021. Arms control had long been regarded as the last redoubt of constructive collaboration between Washington and Moscow. 

Putin showed no signs of backing down as he used his annual state-of-the-nation address to rail against the United States and accuse Ukraine and the West of provoking the war days before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. “They want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on us and try to get to our nuclear facilities at the same time,” Putin said during his nearly 100-minute speech, which was met with applause from Russian lawmakers and senior officials. “In this context, I have to declare today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday that his country would suspend its participation in the New START agreement with the United States, throwing into question the future of the last remaining arms control accord between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. 

The treaty, which came into force in 2011, places limits on the number of intercontinental nuclear weapons that each country can have and was extended for an additional five years in 2021. Arms control had long been regarded as the last redoubt of constructive collaboration between Washington and Moscow. 

Putin showed no signs of backing down as he used his annual state-of-the-nation address to rail against the United States and accuse Ukraine and the West of provoking the war days before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. “They want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on us and try to get to our nuclear facilities at the same time,” Putin said during his nearly 100-minute speech, which was met with applause from Russian lawmakers and senior officials. “In this context, I have to declare today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms.”

Responding to Putin’s announcement, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “With today’s decision on New START, the whole arms control architecture has been dismantled.” 

Experts said it’s too soon to interpret Putin’s remarks as heralding a new nuclear arms race, but with the treaty set to expire in 2026, the Russian leader’s announcement will further complicate diplomatic efforts to extend or negotiate a new treaty between the United States and Russia, which together hold about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

“If they don’t agree to new limits on their strategic arsenals before New START expires, we won’t have any limitations on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “That does open the door to a build-up by both sides of their strategic nuclear arsenals.”

Here’s what Putin’s announcement could mean for the future of arms control. 

What did Putin actually say?

Putin did not quite invoke the nuclear option on arms control in his announcement on Tuesday. In suspending Russia’s participation in the treaty, rather than withdrawing in full, the document still stands and can in theory be returned to in the future. “Suspension is better than withdrawal,” said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. “Things could have been worse,” he said. 

It’s unclear what it would take for Russia to return to the treaty, Kimball said. “I would not pay too much attention to the pretext and excuses that [Putin] gave for why Russia is pulling out,” he added. 

Putin outlined his terms for returning to the agreement, including factoring in the nuclear capabilities of other NATO member states including the United Kingdom and France, which are not currently party to the agreement. 

“That’s not a serious point,” said Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. “The U.K. and France were not a party when Russia signed it. They were not party in 2021 when Putin extended the treaty for five years.” 

Putin also said that Russia would not conduct any new nuclear test explosions—unless the United States did so first, in a seemingly responsible but largely irrelevant statement. “It is not an appreciable change in Russia’s position,” Kimball said, noting that both the United States and Russia are signatories of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which bans any and all nuclear weapons tests. As the United States has no appetite to violate the treaty by testing its nuclear capabilities for the first time in over a quarter-century, Kimball said, there will be no reason for Russia to follow suit. 

Why did Putin say it now?

Red lights had been flashing around Russia’s participation in the treaty for some time. “The writing was on the wall,” Baklitskiy said. 

Mutual inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites were suspended in March 2020 due to the health risks posed by COVID-19. But as the pandemic subsided, Moscow announced in August 2022 that it would bar U.S. inspectors from resuming visits to its facilities, claiming that Western sanctions impeded the ability of its officials to conduct reciprocal visits to the United States. Last November, the U.S. State Department announced that Russia had postponed a planned meeting in Egypt that was intended to forge a road map to resuming inspections. 

In an announcement last month, the State Department accused Moscow of violating its obligations under the treaty by preventing U.S. officials from inspecting Russian weapons sites. 

What can Washington do?

In a statement on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States would watch closely what Russia does following Putin’s announcement and reiterated that Washington remains ready to talk about arms control.

“The question is, will it be possible for the Biden administration to make the case to Vladimir Putin, who is the blockage here, that it is in Russia’s national security interest to resume full implementation of the treaty,” said Rose Gottemoeller, who served as chief U.S. negotiator of New START. 

Shortly after Putin’s speech, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it would continue to observe limits on the number of nuclear warheads it can deploy under the treaty, staving off the prospects of a renewed arms race for the time being. 

Since mutual site inspections had not resumed following the pandemic, the most immediate impact of Putin’s announcement will likely be an end to Russia upholding its side of the agreement to notify Washington each time nuclear-capable missiles are moved, maintained, decommissioned, or put into storage. Such information sharing served as an important transparency measure that allowed each side to keep tabs on the status of the other’s nuclear forces, even while they were unable to conduct in-person checks. (Since the deal came into effect in 2011, the two sides have exchanged more than 25,000 notifications, according to the State Department.)

“The suspension of the notification regime is to my mind a serious, serious problem,” Gottemoeller said. “The implications are serious for predictability for the United States, but—and this is what is so puzzling about this—it’s equally serious for Russia. How are they expecting to plan for their nuclear operations in the future if they don’t know what’s going on in the U.S. strategic nuclear forces?”

Washington is now faced with the question of whether to continue to keep Moscow updated on the status of its nuclear forces. For now, experts are confident that the Biden administration will keep the door open. “This administration, I’m very confident, is not going to pull out of that agreement,” Kimball said. However, it may face increased pressure from Republicans to take a tougher line. In light of Putin’s announcement, Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee Mike Rogers said “[a]ll options must be on the table,” including the deployment of additional nuclear forces.