Irresponsible

U.S. rebukes Putin as ‘irresponsible’ on nukes

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is the last remaining nuclear pact between the U.S. and Russia.

By MATT BERG and NAHAL TOOSI

The Biden administration on Tuesday condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend a nuclear pact with the United States — castigating the Russian leader while also stressing that the U.S. won’t abandon efforts to cooperate on nuclear precautions.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken bashed Putin’s move, calling it “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible.”

The U.S. will “be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,” Blinken told reporters in Athens. “We’ll of course make sure that, in any event, we are postured appropriately for the security of our country and our allies.”

The suspension symbolizes further deterioration of relations between the two world powers. But American officials have already voiced concerns that Moscow wasn’t complying with the treaty, and it remains unclear how much the move will impact nuclear efforts going forward.

“This latest development should come as no surprise,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called the move “nuclear saber-rattling” from Putin.

“It’s critical that the Biden administration work with our allies to determine how the breakdown of New START should fundamentally alter our force posture,” she said.

The New Nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads both countries can deploy. In 2021, President Joe Biden and Putin extended it for another five years, aiming to avoid an arms race between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

The treaty is the last remaining nonproliferation agreement between the pair after another key nuclear accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, expired in 2019.

While Putin said Tuesday that he’s suspending Moscow’s participation, he stopped short of a complete withdrawal. In his speech, he argued that he was forced into the decision due to U.S. aggression, and accused the U.S. of being involved in attempting to strike bases in Russia.

Putin made the remarks the same day Biden was in Poland to give a speech marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and one day after he made a surprise visit to Kyiv.

The U.S. in January accused Russia of not complying with the treaty by not allowing the United States and NATO to inspect its nuclear facilities. The pact includes limits on systems such as intercontinental ballistic missiles and deployed nuclear warheads.

“When the administration started, we extended New START because it was clearly in the security interest in our country and actually in the security interests of Russia,” Blinken said. “And that only underscores what an irresponsible action this is.”

“Of course, we remain ready to talk about strategic arms limitations at any time with Russia,” Blinken added, “irrespective of anything else going on in the world.”

Recent interactions between U.S. and Russian officials — some of them face-to-face — on New START compliance have been “not good,” according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

After the U.S. alleged earlier this year that Russia was not complying with its treaty obligations, senior Russian officials essentially delivered demarches to the United States complaining about these findings, Kimball said.

Still, Kimball called Putin’s announcement as basically “nuclear chest-thumping.”

Jeff Edmonds, the former director for Russia on the National Security Council, shared a similar view of the situation.

“I do not think this is an escalation — just more rhetorical nuclear coercion,” he said. “It was going to be hard to replace New START even without the war.”

Blinken’s openness to continuing talks with Russia no matter the circumstances reflects the rhetoric Biden and Putin espoused when they agreed to extend the treaty. “Even in periods of tension” the adversaries could work alongside each other, reads a joint statement released at the time.

The war over the past year has tested and strained that partnership. Fighting around a Ukrainian nuclear power plant captured by Russian forces injected uncertainty into the agreement, paired with a decaying relationship due to sanctions imposed on Moscow by Washington. That’s not to mention the strategic stability talks the pair vowed to engage in were suspended following the invasion of Ukraine.