PUTIN SIGNS EXTENSION OF RUSSIA-U.S. NUCLEAR ARMS TREATY

Sat 30 January 2021:

Vladimir Putin has signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was due to expire.

The new US administration earlier said Washington wants a five-year extension to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which is due to expire on Feb. 5, a decision welcomed by Kremlin.

The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by former US President Barack Obama and former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads both countries can deploy to 1,550.

Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend the New Start treaty for five years. Putin and the US president, Joe Biden, had discussed the nuclear accord a day earlier, and the Kremlin said they agreed to complete the necessary extension procedures in the next few days.

Biden indicated during the US presidential campaign that he favoured the preservation of New Start, which was negotiated during his tenure as vice-president under Obama.

Trump argued that the treaty put the US at a disadvantage, and he initially insisted on adding China as a party to the pact. Beijing bluntly rejected the idea. The Trump administration then proposed extending New Start for one year and sought to expand it to include limits on battlefield nuclear weapons and other changes, and the talks stalled.

After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, New Start is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries.

Arms control advocates hailed New Start’s extension as a boost to global security and urged Russia and the US to start negotiating follow-up agreements.