Russia will continue to comply with the established limits recently expired new START nuclear arms reduction treaty if the US does the same, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
“Our president announced that this moratorium will remain in force, but as long as the United States does not exceed the mentioned limits,” said Lavrov, addressing the lower house of the Russian Parliament.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed in 2010 by the US and Russia. It limited the number of strategic nuclear warheads the two countries could deploy to 1,550, and included verification measures such as on-site inspections and data exchanges designed to ensure compliance.
The treaty was originally set to expire in February 2021, but former President Joe Biden extended it for five years, keeping it in effect until February 2026.
President Vladimir Putin said last year that Russia was ready to continue to abide by the treaty’s core limits if the US did the same, and Lavrov’s latest comments confirm that position in the wake of the pact’s expiration.
EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA/REUTERS 
According to The Associated Press, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said last week that Russia “will maintain a responsible and thorough approach to stability with regard to nuclear weapons. And, of course, it will be guided primarily by its national interests.”
Debate continues over the future of strategic arms control in the US.
President Trump has previously argued that any nuclear deal should include China, which has expanded its nuclear arsenal in recent years. Beijing has repeatedly rejected calls to join the trilateral talks on nuclear weapons, even though its weapons stockpile is significantly smaller than that of the US and Russia.
A White House official told CBS News in January that the president would decide on a path to nuclear arms control “that will unfold in his own time.”
Last week, the US and Russia agreed reset Formal high-level military communications were suspended in late 2021, ahead of Russia’s invasion of all of Ukraine.
But there has been no progress on a new deal to regulate the arsenals of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
Mr Trump he led the Pentagon in October reaffirming nuclear weapons testing on “parity” with other countries’ tests, a move that could end a US moratorium until the end of the cold war.
“Due to the testing programs of other countries, I have directed the War Department to begin testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal footing,” the president wrote. Social Truthusing his administration’s preferred term for the Defense Department. “That process will begin immediately.”
A few days later, Putin ordered his government Present proposals to resume nuclear weapons testing in Russia.
In a meeting with the Security Council, Putin said that he had restrained Russia internationally Nuclear Test Ban Treatywhich prohibits nuclear test explosions, but said, “If the United States or any other treaty state were to conduct such tests, Russia would have an obligation to take reciprocal measures.”