Moscow, 05 February (H.S.): In a pivotal declaration on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed that Moscow would proceed with measured responsibility following the imminent expiration of the New START treaty, the final bilateral nuclear arms control accord with the United States, set to conclude on Thursday, February 5.

Signed in 2010 by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama, New START imposed stringent caps on strategic nuclear arsenals, limiting each superpower to 1,550 deployed warheads—a nearly 30 percent reduction from prior benchmarks—alongside restrictions on 700 deployed delivery vehicles such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers.

The agreement facilitated robust verification through 18 annual on-site inspections: ten Type One probes at deployed systems bases and eight Type Two at non-deployed facilities, though these were halted amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's 2023 suspension of participation.

During a 85-minute video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on February 4, Putin reiterated Russia's September 2025 proposal to adhere voluntarily to New START limits for an additional year, a gesture that elicited initial approbation from U.S. President Donald Trump yet yielded no formal negotiations.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov emphasized Moscow's openness to dialogue for strategic stability, underscoring that Russia had maintained compliance despite suspending data exchanges and inspections in response to U.S. allegations of violations.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled reluctance to extend the pact bilaterally, insisting that contemporary arms control must encompass China's burgeoning nuclear stockpile, which lags far behind the 80 percent global warhead dominance shared by Washington and Moscow.

Echoing Trump's longstanding advocacy for trilateral arrangements—a stance that previously imperiled the treaty—Rubio deferred to the president for definitive guidance, amid observations that no substantive overtures to Beijing have materialized since Trump's 2025 inauguration.

Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff, implored world leaders at his February 4 general audience in Vatican City to supplant the logic of fear with collaborative ethos, urging preservation of New START's framework to forestall a catastrophic arms race.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons echoed this, advocating interim adherence to limits during new talks, while Germany's foreign ministry attributed the lapse squarely to Russia's protracted non-compliance.

Compounding anxieties, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced its Doomsday Clock to a record 85 seconds to midnight last month, citing New START's demise among escalating nuclear perils.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar