US says Russia violated nuclear weapons treaty

A report sent to Congress by the US State Department says this, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A January 31 report sent to Congress by the US State Department said that Moscow was not complying with the agreement for the first time since it came into force in 2011. The absence of inspections has also made it difficult to verify the number of warheads that Russia has deployed.

“The finding comes amid concerns that the sharp tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may endanger prospects of cooperating on arms control and negotiating a follow-on agreement that would take effect after the New START treaty expires in 2026,” the publication notes. 

The Biden administration is reportedly seeking to preserve the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which is the last major agreement governing nuclear competition between the parties, and is pressuring Russia to correct violations.

“There is a clear path to re-compliance here, and we continue to strongly value the treaty. Both of these instances of noncompliance are easily remedied,” said a senior State Department official.

Russian officials knew that the State Department was due to report to Congress soon on Moscow's compliance with New START, and tried to accuse the United States of weakening cooperation with the implementation of the agreement.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said last week that it is difficult to respond to Washington's concerns “until the United States reconsiders its extremely hostile line toward Russia.”

“At the beginning of the Biden administration, both sides seemed eager to safeguard the treaty. President Biden called for a five-year extension of the New START treaty during his first month in office, which was agreed to by Moscow. The agreement caps the number of deployed nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550 and includes provisions for on-site inspections to verify the treaty’s limits,” the publication notes. 

It is known that inspections were suspended in March 2020 by mutual agreement after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the war in 2022 complicated the situation. In August of that year, the United States sought to resume inspections, but Russia refused. The problems escalated when the United States tried to discuss its concerns at a session of the New START Bilateral Consultative Commission, which was created to monitor the implementation of the agreement. Russian officials again refused.

In September 2022, Russia reported having 1,549 warheads and bombs. But without conducting inspections, according to the State Department's report.

However, the State Department says that if Moscow exceeds the maximum number of warheads, these numbers will not be militarily significant.

“There now isn’t a single treaty that Russia has not or is not violating. The Joint Staff needs to assume Russia has or will be breaching New START caps. I want to see the plans for how the US will respond,” said Mike Rogers, the Alabama Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Russia continues to report its test missile launches in accordance with the treaty and to exchange data on the number of warheads, missiles and bombers deployed. The State Department official said that the Russians continued to talk about their support for the treaty.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the difficulties could pose problems for negotiations on a potential next treaty: “New START will expire in exactly 1,101 days. The longer Mr. Putin blocks effective engagement on nuclear arms control diplomacy with the United States, the more likely Russian and US nuclear arsenals will be left unconstrained for the first time since 1972.”