US says Russia is non-compliant with New Start nuclear weapons treaty

The US has found that Russia is failing to meet its obligations under the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the powers, officials said on Tuesday.

In a report sent to Congress, the US State Department said Russia had violated the New Start Treaty by not allowing necessary inspections and refusing to attend compliance meetings.

“Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the US from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of US-Russian nuclear arms control,” a US State Department official said.

Last week, senior Republicans wrote to officials in the Biden administration, urging them to make a decision on Russia’s compliance.

Although the treaty is not directly linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s hostility to the West over sanctions and high-tech arms supplies to Kyiv has heightened tensions over it.

Sergey Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister and one of the main negotiators of the treaty, said in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant last Thursday that Moscow is unlikely to resume talks as long as the US continues to support Ukraine.

He said Russia had told the US that “as long as the US does not reconsider its extremely hostile line towards our country and abandons its policy of cultivating threats to Russia’s national security,” all “positive signals” for compliance with New Start” unwarranted, ill-timed and inappropriate”.

Ryabkov met with Lynne Tracy, the new US ambassador to Moscow, on Tuesday and discussed “some current arms control issues,” the State Department said.

But when Tracy arrived to present her credentials the day before, she was greeted by a wave of hecklers who chanted, “America is a terrorist state!”

The police did not break up the gathering – a sign that it probably had official sanctions, since even pro-regime public protests are tightly controlled by the security services.

US officials said Tuesday they remain committed to the deal and urged Russia to return to compliance by allowing inspections to resume and convening talks. Russian inspectors had no obstacles in traveling to the US, they added.

“Russia has a clear path towards full compliance,” the Foreign Ministry official said. “The United States remains ready to work constructively with Russia to fully implement the New Start Treaty.”

The US and Russia agreed in 2021 to extend the treaty by five years, limiting both countries to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons.

Russia’s actions have raised concerns that Washington and Moscow may struggle to secure a follow-up deal in 2026 that would leave countries without a nuclear arms control treaty.

Washington’s assessment comes as Western officials are concerned that Russia could deploy a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine as Kremlin forces suffer further setbacks on the battlefield.