Russia on Monday welcomed a potential breakthrough in nuclear arms talks, praising U.S. President Donald Trump’s endorsement of President Vladimir Putin’s recent offer.
Putin had proposed voluntarily preserving the limits on nuclear weapons set by the existing New START treaty for an additional year, a proposal Trump publicly called “a good idea.”
Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the New START Treaty, the last remaining Russian-U.S. arms control treaty, which expires on Feb. 5, 2026.
When asked about the proposal, Trump told reporters on Sunday that it “sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Of course, we welcome such a statement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We believe that this already gives grounds for optimism that the United States will support this initiative of President Putin.”
Russia and the United States are by far the biggest nuclear powers with approximately 87 percent of the world’s total inventory of nuclear weapons – more than enough to destroy the world many times over. Russia has a total inventory of 5,459 nuclear warheads while the United States has 5,177, according to the Federation of Atomic Scientists
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia had said Moscow was still waiting for Trump to respond to Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons once a key arms control treaty expires.
Any agreement on continuing to limit nuclear arms would stand in contrast to rising tensions between the United States and Russia since Trump and Putin met in Alaska in mid-August given reported incursions of Russian drones into NATO airspace.
Speaking in a video clip released on Sunday, Putin warned that a decision by the United States to supply long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for strikes deep into Russia would destroy Moscow’s relationship with Washington.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said last month that Washington was considering a Ukrainian request to obtain missiles that could strike deep into Russia, including Moscow, though it is unclear if a final decision has been made.
Trump, who has expressed disappointment in Putin for not moving to end the war in Ukraine, was not asked directly on Sunday about the prospect of supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine.
(With inputs from Reuters)
