The last remaining U.S.–Russia nuclear treaty expires in less than a year. A new arms race has already begun.
Fifteen years ago, Russia and the United States signed the New START treaty to limit their nuclear arsenals. In 2021, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden agreed to extend the agreement — but it’s now set to expire next year. Analysts and international security experts are raising concerns: New START is effectively the last remaining arms control treaty between the two countries, playing a crucial role in curbing nuclear stockpiles and preventing a new arms race. At the same time, Russia continues to heighten tensions with its rhetoric, repeatedly threatening Ukraine’s Western allies with nuclear strikes. Meduza examines why reaching a new agreement on nuclear deterrence may prove difficult — even as Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump grow closer.
A brief thaw
Just a few months before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I. Under the deal, Moscow and Washington committed to significantly cutting their nuclear arsenals over the next 15 years, agreeing to cap them at no more than 6,000 warheads each. By 2001, the U.S. and Russia — START I’s legal successor after the USSR’s dissolution — declared that the treaty’s terms had been fulfilled.
With START I set to expire in 2009, Russian President Vladimir Putin, then in his second term, proposed a new agreement. Negotiations on mutual nuclear arms control were aided by the “reset” in U.S.–Russia relations — a short-lived thaw that took place in 2008–2009.
In 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed the New START treaty. It was scheduled to remain in force until 2021, with an option to extend it once for up to five years.
The treaty established several key limits: each side could deploy up to 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers; up to 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers for ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers; and no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic delivery systems.
It also included provisions for mutual inspections, data exchanges, and a system of notifications on the movement and status of nuclear weapons. Another important clause prohibited either side from deploying strategic offensive arms on the territory of third countries.
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In 2021, Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to extend New START until 2026. But following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Washington rapidly deteriorated. In late February 2022, Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on a heightened state of alert. Even earlier, in December 2021, Russia’s General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov stated that 95 percent of the country’s land-based strategic nuclear launchers were in “a state of constant combat readiness.”
In 2023, as Western countries ramped up their support for Ukraine, the Kremlin announced that Russia was “suspending” its participation in New START. Putin emphasized at the time that Russia wasn’t withdrawing from the treaty altogether — only pausing its involvement.
Just prior to that announcement, the U.S. State Department reported that Russia had blocked American inspectors from visiting nuclear-related facilities. While inspections had been on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington later accused Moscow of deliberately stalling its resumption, undermining the viability of mutual arms control.
Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, called the suspension of New START a punishment for what he described as America’s “dumb anti-Russian policy.” “Serves you right,” said the former president — who had once signed the very same treaty.
Russia and the U.S. once had multiple nuclear treaties — but all of them have now lapsed
In total, Washington and Moscow have signed seven nuclear arms control agreements over the years.
The first were SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, signed by the U.S. and the USSR in 1972. Under the ABM Treaty, both sides agreed to maintain only one ABM system complex each. The idea was to create mutual vulnerability and uncertainty about the ability to defend against a nuclear strike, thereby discouraging either side from launching one. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2022, citing the threat of terrorism.
In 1979, the two superpowers also signed the SALT II agreement, which sought to limit strategic weapons to 2,400 units, with a phased reduction to 2,150. However, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, neither country’s legislature ratified the treaty, even though both governments agreed to abide by its terms. SALT II formally expired in 1985.
In 1987, amid improving relations between Moscow and Washington, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a new agreement — the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty).
The INF Treaty was the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons. Both sides committed to destroying their land-based ballistic and cruise missile systems with intermediate or shorter ranges and pledged not to produce, test, or deploy such missiles in the future. The agreement also included mutual inspections of nuclear facilities.
By the 2010s, both Russia and the U.S. were accusing each other of violating the treaty. At the initiative of Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. withdrew from the INF Treaty. NATO backed the decision, claiming that Russia had breached its obligations by developing the 9M729 missile system. Russia insisted it was in compliance, saying the missile’s range did not exceed 500 kilometers (310 miles).
In addition to START I, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed another treaty in 1993 — START II. It banned the use of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on ballistic missiles and lowered the warhead cap to between 3,000 and 3,500. Russia ratified the treaty but tied its implementation to the ABM Treaty. When the U.S. pulled out of the ABM Treaty, START II was nullified.
That same year, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed another accord — the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Moscow Treaty. It required both sides to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. SORT was rendered obsolete by the adoption of New START in 2011.
Russia has suspended its participation in New START — but says it continues to observe its obligations
In May 2024, U.S. State Department officials reported that despite Russia’s “suspension” of its participation in New START, it was still adhering to the treaty’s nuclear limits.
That November, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had tested a new intermediate-range missile system, the “Oreshnik,” and had used a ballistic missile with “non-nuclear hypersonic equipment” to strike a Ukrainian military target in Dnipro.
Putin described the strike as a response to Ukraine’s use of American ATACMS and Franco-British Storm Shadow (SCALP) missiles in air attacks on Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions. He also cited U.S. plans to produce and deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles — along with the earlier U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty — as additional justification.
Later that month, Russia formally announced changes to its nuclear doctrine. The updated policy states that a nuclear strike may be triggered by “aggression against Russia and its allies by any non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear state,” as well as by a large-scale air attack using non-nuclear weapons, including drones.
Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, told Meduza that in the absence of external inspections, there’s no way to confirm whether Russia is still observing New START limits. In any case, according to Russian nuclear policy expert Maksim Starchak, Russia has the capability to exceed those limits.
Still, Podvig noted, Russia’s nuclear threats are having an effect. The West continues to respect the “red line” drawn by the Kremlin — direct involvement of the U.S. or NATO in the war in Ukraine. “That line remains intact. No one has crossed it. In fact, no one has even tried. Everyone’s afraid,” he said. At the same time, Russia hasn’t crossed that line either — it hasn’t attacked military bases in Poland or other countries, despite ongoing arms shipments through them to Ukraine.
“We’re in a situation where both sides understand that if there’s a direct clash, it could trigger an escalation — and neither side knows whether it would be able to control that process,” Podvig said.
Starchak agrees. He believes that if nuclear threats weren’t working, Ukraine’s Western allies would have provided much more effective support. In his view, Russia’s nuclear status likely delayed the early delivery of essential weapons to Ukraine at the start of the full-scale war.
U.S.–Russia relations are improving. There’s a small chance Putin and Trump could extend New START.
The first Trump administration chose not to extend New START with Russia, aiming instead to negotiate a new treaty that would also include China. Under his successor, however, despite widespread expectations from officials and analysts that no deal would be reached, Putin and Joe Biden ultimately agreed to extend the treaty just days before it was due to expire.
Pro-Kremlin analysts differ in their outlooks on another possible extension — ranging from cautious optimism to outright opposition to any new agreement with the U.S.
For example, Ivan Timofeyev, director of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), wrote that recent U.S.–Russia ceasefire talks on Ukraine had “sparked hope for a return to constructive dialogue” on nuclear arms control. Still, he believes that due to the lack of “substantial preparatory work,” New START is unlikely to be “revived.” If negotiations do happen under Trump, Timofeyev suggests that the issue of including China in a new security framework may resurface — even though Beijing currently refuses to limit its nuclear arsenal.
According to Timofeyev, the war in Ukraine has “significantly strained” the nuclear relationship between Russia and the U.S. He also warned of a real risk of nuclear escalation, though noted that "the odd call" for preemptive strikes on NATO countries had not gained much traction.
Timofeyev was likely referring to political analyst Sergey Karaganov, who in June 2023 proposed a preemptive nuclear strike on Europe to break “the West’s will to aggression” and secure Russian victory in Ukraine. Unlike Timofeyev, Karaganov is skeptical about the possibility of any new arms control agreements. He has urged the Russian government not to reduce its nuclear arsenal “under any circumstances.”
Pavel Podvig told Meduza that under its current terms, New START cannot be extended again; the treaty allows for only a single extension. However, it could be amended to permit another renewal. Even so, Maxim Starchak doubts such an optimistic scenario is realistic with the current presidents in office.
Another obstacle is a school of thought in the U.S. that argues Washington should expand its nuclear arsenal to deter two near-peer adversaries: Russia and China. According to Podvig, it is experts from this camp who are pushing to raise the warhead limit beyond the 1,550 cap set by New START in a new agreement, if there is one.
Starchak also notes that one of Putin’s key complaints about the U.S. since NATO’s latest expansion has been Trump’s proposed “Iron Dome” missile defense system. The Kremlin believes New START can only remain viable if the U.S. refrains from expanding its missile defense capabilities. Still, Starchak says, it’s hard to imagine Russia seriously discussing arms reduction with Trump’s team. For now, Moscow seems more interested in leveraging Trump’s pro-Kremlin leanings in other areas — and appears willing to set aside missile defense issues. “But sooner or later, that stumbling block will resurface,” he concludes.
A new treaty is unlikely
Another obstacle to extending New START is Russia’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in March 2023. While the treaty prohibits only the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons outside national territory — not tactical ones — the move further heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Complicating matters is the fact that Trump wants any future nuclear deal to include China. Putin, meanwhile, wants France and the U.K. at the table. In spring 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was open to creating a “nuclear umbrella” to protect Europe from potential Russian aggression. Poland has already signaled its willingness to host French nuclear weapons on its territory.
All of this complicates any swift agreement between Russia and the U.S. “Washington and Moscow failed to extend New START during Trump’s first term. Negotiating strategic arms control is even harder now,” says Maxim Starchak. In his view, unless China is part of the deal, a second Trump administration won’t be interested. He believes the Republican establishment would only support an agreement with Moscow if it included concessions on other types of nuclear weapons — strategic or otherwise. And in his view, there’s no chance of that happening now. "That’s why I don’t see any prospects for arms control between the U.S. and Russia in the coming years,” Starchak told Meduza.
Pavel Podvig is also skeptical about the chances of a new treaty replacing New START. “There would immediately be a lot of issues. The Americans want to include Russia’s non-strategic nuclear weapons, and Russia wants to include certain non-nuclear strategic weapons,” he says. Even if a deal were reached, Podvig believes it would essentially be a continuation of New START in a different form.
Even non-nuclear states are now considering developing their own arsenals
Some American experts believe the world is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race once New START expires. Tara Drozdenko, an international security specialist, notes that both the U.S. and Russia could rapidly expand their arsenals by deploying additional warheads on existing missiles. According to her, “nuclear hawks” are already pressuring the U.S. government to approve the development of new weapons.
Since returning to office, Donald Trump has launched a sweeping overhaul of U.S. foreign policy — most notably by stepping back from commitments to defend America’s allies. As a result, countries around the world are beginning to seriously consider developing their own nuclear arsenals, Politico reported in April 2025. These include Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and even Japan — the only country ever to suffer a nuclear attack.
Speaking to Meduza, Maxim Starchak says a new nuclear arms race is already underway. The development of new hypersonic, space-based, and autonomous weapons is part of that race. While their actual advantages remain unclear, governments increasingly see them as essential, he says.
If Trump’s “Iron Dome” concept becomes a reality, Russia could respond by increasing the number of its nuclear delivery systems. Meanwhile, China and North Korea are expanding their nuclear forces, and the U.K. has ruled out further reductions. “The world is becoming more militarized. And that means nuclear disarmament will be harder and harder to justify,” Starchak concludes.
