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As Landmark Treaty Expires, No Binding Limits on US-Russia Nuclear Arsenals

Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2026 (IPS) By Thalif Deen, https://www.ipsnews.net/2026/02/as-landmark-treaty-expires-no-binding-limits-on-us-russia-nuclear-arsenals/?utm_source=email_marketing&utm_admin=146128&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=A_Business_Necessity_Align_With_Nature_or_Risk_Collapse_IPBES_Report_Warns_As_Landmark_Treaty_Expire

– When the nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the US and Russia expired last week, it ended a historic era— but triggered widespread speculation about the future.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “February 5 was a grave moment for international peace and security”.

For the first time in more than half a century, he pointed out, “we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America – the two States that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons.”

US President Donald Trump dismissed the termination of the treaty rather sarcastically when he told the New York Times last month: “if it expires, it expires”—and denounced the expiring treaty as “a badly negotiated deal”.


“We will do a better agreement”, he promised, adding that China, which has one of the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenals, “and other parties” should be part of any future treaty.

The Chinese, according to the Times, “have made clear they are not interested”.

Currently, the world’s nine nuclear powers are the US, UK, Russia, France and China—all permanent members of the Security Council—plus India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Collectively, they possess an estimated 12,100 to 12,500 nuclear warheads, with Russia and the US owning nearly 90% of the total eve while all nine are actively modernizing their arsenals.

Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute told IPS the START Treaty should be extended at least a year by formal or informal means. Is that as good as obtaining a new treaty that would include China as the US administration wants? No.


“Is it as good as fulfilling legally required steps such as adherence to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) unanimous ruling to negotiate the universal elimination of nuclear weapons or the fulfillment of the promise of nuclear disarmament embodied in Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)? No”.

However, argued Granoff, doing nothing is asserting that a modest threat reducing easily obtained step now should not be taken because there are better ways forward. A modest positive step is no impediment to moving in other desired manners.

Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint, said Granoff.

The arguments being put forth as to why nothing can be done are inadequate.


First, the US argues that a new arrangement, a new treaty, is needed to bring China into the fold of restraint, he said.

“A modest step of extending START for a year by mutual presidential decrees while new negotiations take place does not negate creating a new treaty that would include China.”

Second, the arguments used to rationalize the new arms race fail to consider the folly of producing more accurate, usable, and powerful nuclear weapons”, declared Granoff.

Guterres pointed out the dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time – the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades.

“Yet even in this moment of uncertainty, we must search for hope. This is an opportunity to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context.”


“I welcome that the Presidents of both States have made clear that they appreciate the destabilizing impact of a nuclear arms race and the need to prevent the return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation.

“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action. I urge both States to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security’, said Guterres.

In a statement released last week, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), a global network of legislators working to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world, said the importance of the New START treaty is hard to overstate.

“As other nuclear treaties have been abrogated in recent years, this was the only deal left with notification, inspection, verification and treaty compliance mechanisms between Russia and the US. Between them, they possess 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons.”

The demise of the treaty will bring a definitive and alarming end to nuclear restraint between the two powers. It may very well accelerate the global nuclear arms race, PNND warned.

This was one of the key reasons that on January 27, 2026, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 85 Seconds to Midnight.

Last year, PNND Co-President Senator Markey introduced draft legislation into the US Senate urging the government to negotiate new post-START agreements with Russia and China. The legislation is supported by a number of other Senators and by a companion bill in the House of Representatives. But this seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the Trump Administration.

Granoff, providing a deeper analysis, told IPS the scientific data makes clear that a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would annihilate humanity and that a limited nuclear exchange of less than 2% of the world’s arsenals would put around 5 million tons of soot into the stratosphere leading billions of deaths and the devastation of modern civilization everywhere.

“Realism reveals that the alleged need to duplicate the arsenals of adversary nations is not needed for deterrence. Realism also reveals that there is actually little to no meaningful difference between a nation having 600 (as China does now) or over 1400 deployed nuclear weapons, mirroring the US and Russia, or 30,000 nuclear weapons as Russia and the US each had at the height of the last arms race”.

“The reality is that devastation globally of a small portion of the world’s nuclear arsenals would be unambiguously unacceptable to any sane person. We could say that realism informs us that we have moved from Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to Self-Assured Destruction (SAD). The fact is that if any of the 9 states with the weapons were to use several hundred nuclear weapons that nation itself would also be devastated. MAD today reveals a new acronym, SAD.”

Meanwhile, a posting in the US State Department website reads


Treaty Structure: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, enhances U.S. national security by placing verifiable limits on all Russian deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons. The United States and the Russian Federation had agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.


Strategic Offensive Limits: The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011. Under the treaty, the United States and the Russian Federation had seven years to meet the treaty’s central limits on strategic offensive arms (by February 5, 2018) and are then obligated to maintain those limits for as long as the treaty remains in force.

Aggregate Limits

Both the United States and the Russian Federation met the central limits of the New START Treaty by February 5, 2018, and have stayed at or below them ever since. Those limits are:


• 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments;
• 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit);
• 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

IPS UN Bureau Report

February 17, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Russia says it will stick to limits of expired nuclear treaty if US does the same

Reuters, By Dmitry Antonov and Mark Trevelyan, February 12, 2026

  • New START treaty expired, no binding constraints on arsenals
  • Russia commits to treaty limits as long as US does
  • Russia wary of costly arms race amid Ukraine conflict

MOSCOW, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Russia will keep observing the missile and warhead limits in the expired New START nuclear treaty with the United States as long as Washington continues to do the same, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.

The 2010 treaty ran out on February 5, leaving the world’s two biggest nuclear-armed powers with no binding constraints on their strategic arsenals for the first time in more than half a century.

U.S. President Donald Trump rejected an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to voluntarily abide by the New START limits for another year, saying he wanted a “new, improved and modernized” treaty rather than an extension of the old one.

“Our position is that this moratorium on our side that was declared by the president is still in place, but only as long as the United States doesn’t exceed the said limits,” Lavrov told the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

“We have reason to believe that the United States is in no hurry to deviate from these indicators, and for the foreseeable future these indicators will be observed,” he said, without explaining the basis for that assumption

Lavrov reiterated that Russia wanted to start a “strategic dialogue” with the U.S., saying it was “long overdue”.

NEW THREAT ENVIRONMENT

New START’s expiry has spurred fears of a three-way arms race involving Russia, the U.S. and China, which has far fewer warheads than the other two countries but is arming rapidly……………………………….. https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-it-wont-breach-limits-expired-nuclear-treaty-if-us-does-same-2026-02-11/

February 16, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Russian nuclear agency insists it can run seized Ukrainian atomic power plant

Europe’s largest atomic power station was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2022

Guy Faulconbridge, Thursday 12 February 2026 , https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/rosatom-zaporizhzhia-plant-ukraine-russia-b2919153.html

Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, has rejected Ukrainian accusations that it lacks the necessary equipment and components to safely operate the Soviet-built Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The claims were made by Pavlo Kovtoniuk, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear firm Energoatom, who told Reuters in Kyiv that Russia’s alleged deficiencies could lead to a nuclear accident if it attempted to restart the reactors.

Mr Kovtoniuk stated Russia lacked some equipment and spare parts to operate the plant, and risked a nuclear accident if it tried to restart the reactors.

Europe’s largest atomic power station, the facility was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2022.

All six of its Soviet-designed VVER-1000 pressurised water reactors are currently in a “cold shutdown” state.

The plant’s future remains a critical point of contention in ongoing peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, with both nations vying for control.

“Rosatom categorically rejects claims that Russia lacks the equipment and components required to ensure the safe operation of the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant,” Rosatom said in a statement to Reuters in English when asked about the remarks.

“Russia operates one of the world’s largest nuclear fleets, including VVER-1000 units identical to those installed at Zaporozhskaya NPP, and has full capacity to produce equipment, components and nuclear fuel.”

Rosatom, ranked as one of the world’s biggest nuclear corporations in terms of nuclear construction, enrichment services and mining, said that the key issue affecting nuclear safety at the plant was continued shelling in the area.

Ukraine’s Kovtoniuk argued that control equipment and monitoring systems at the plant were Ukrainian, that Russia would have to replace US fuel in the reactors, and that there was not enough water to cool the reactors if restarted.

“Insinuations implying that the plant’s systems are incompatible with Russian fuel are technically unfounded,” Rosatom said, adding that in late 2025, reactor No. 1 received a 10-year operating licence from Russia’s nuclear safety authority, Rostechnadzor.

Rosatom said the plant’s cooling system had never depended exclusively on the Kakhovka reservoir, adding that the cooling pond used a closed-loop system and had sufficient water.

February 16, 2026 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Bad Beginnings: The End of New START

Putin was also of the opinion that “a complete renunciation of New START’s legacy would, from many points, be a grave and short-sighted mistake”, having “adverse implications for the objectives of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].

11 February 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, AIM,

Future of How awful could it get? The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired on February 5, terminating an era of arms control and imposed limits on lunatically contrived nuclear weapons programs of the United States and Russia. The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011 and initially imposed a timeline of seven years for the parties to meet the central limits on strategic offensive arms. Those limits would then be maintained for the duration of the Treaty.

Till its expiry, the countries maintained limits on the following nuclear arms and systems: 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers capable of using nuclear armaments; 1,550 nuclear warheads on all three deployed platforms; and 800 deployed and non-deployed nuclear capable systems (ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and nuclear capable heavy bombers).

Such limits were hardly laudatory, or even exceptional. The cap of 1,550 nuclear warheads is the sort of thing that would only impress the limited crazed circle that passes for arms negotiators in this field, and the various thanocrats who populate such institutes as RAND. Such a show is merely intended for both Moscow and Washington to tell other countries with, or without nuclear weapons, that they could impose restraints on their own gluttonous conduct. Even then, New START, as with all such instruments dealing with limiting nuclear weapons, came with the intended, gaping lacunae. It failed to cover, for instance, tactical nuclear weapons, nor limit the deployment of new strategic weapon systems.

The treaty also fell into neglect with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suspended on-site inspections never resumed after 2022. As François Diaz-Maurin of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists points out, “Russia has not shared data on its deployed strategic nuclear forces since September 2022, it suspended its treaty participation altogether in February 2023, and the United States has not published any aggregate numbers since May 2023.” New START came to increasingly look like a gentleman’s agreement being sniffed at by truculent adolescents.

In September last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin dangled the prospect of extending the treaty’s core limits for a year. At a September 22, 2025 Russian Security Council Meeting, he promised that Moscow was “prepared to continue observing the … central quantitative restrictions” stipulated in New START for twelve months provided the US acted “in similar spirit.” Following the year’s extension, “a careful assessment of the situation [and] a definite decision on whether to uphold these voluntary self-limitations” would be made. Putin was also of the opinion that “a complete renunciation of New START’s legacy would, from many points, be a grave and short-sighted mistake”, having “adverse implications for the objectives of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].

When word of this reached the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed the view that the proposal sounded “pretty good.” Two weeks later, President Donald Trump responded to a question posed by a TASS reporter that Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty like a good idea to me.” Little, however, was subsequently done. Indeed, Trump has cut the number of diplomats tasked with nuclear matters in the State Department and made public statements last October that nuclear testing might be resumed. He has also complicated arms control matters by insisting that China be added to the limitation talks, something Beijing has shown little interest in doing. In January this year, the president seemed unfussed that the international document was about to pass into the archives of diplomatic oblivion. “If it expires, it expires. We’ll do a better agreement.”

The US political establishment had been struck by a distinct lack of interest, even lethargy, on the subject. New START seemed to be yet another irritating fetter on an administration more enthused by ignoring international obligations than following them. Only a clutch of Democrats seemed to show concern in reflecting about what would follow the treaty’s expiration in House speeches given on January 14. This month, Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey, co-chair of the Senate’s Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, held a press conference urging the Trump administration to renew the vows of fidelity to arms control agreements. “Let’s be honest. America needs another nuclear weapon about as much as Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.”………………………………………………………..

The two powers most responsible for keeping nuclear weapons unforgivably attractive to those who would acquire them show promise of blotting their copybook further. There is a serious sentiment in Washington that the nuclear stockpile will and should grow. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in a fit of gloominess, moved its metaphorical Doomsday Clock just that bit closer to “midnight,” the point where biblical calamity will be assured. It now stands at 85 seconds to midnight. Not long to go now. https://theaimn.net/bad-beginnings-the-end-of-new-start/

February 14, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Russia says will act responsibly despite New START nuclear treaty expiry

Both Beijing and Moscow expressed their regret at the lapse of the last Russia-US nuclear arms control treaty.

By News Agencies 5 Feb 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/5/russia-says-will-act-responsibly-despite-new-start-nuclear-treaty-expiry

The Kremlin says Russia will continue to be a responsible nuclear power, despite the expiry of the last nuclear arms control treaty between Moscow and Washington, which experts say risks ushering in a new global arms race.

The New START treaty expires on Thursday, marking the end of more than half a century of limits on the United States and Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons.

“Today the day will end, and it [the treaty] will cease to have any effect,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. Arms control experts had previously said their assumption was that it expired at the end of Wednesday.

Russia had suggested both sides voluntarily extend the terms of the agreement for one year to provide time to discuss a successor treaty, a proposal which it said US President Donald Trump had never formally answered.

“The agreement is coming to an end. We view this negatively and express our regret,” said Peskov, who said the matter had come up in a call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping a day earlier.

“What happens next depends on how events unfold. In any case, the Russian Federation will maintain its responsible and attentive approach to the issue of strategic stability in the field of nuclear weapons and, of course, as always, will be guided first and foremost by its national interests.”

New START, first signed in Prague in 2010 by then presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads – a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.

Deployed weapons or warheads are those in active service and available for rapid use as opposed to those in storage or awaiting dismantlement.

It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.

‘China will not participate in disarmament negotiations’

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs joined a growing international chorus expressing regret over the treaty’s expiry.

“China regrets the expiration of the New START treaty, as the treaty is of great significance to maintaining global strategic stability,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Thursday.

“The international community is generally concerned that the expiration of the treaty will have a negative impact on the international nuclear arms control system and the global nuclear order.”

Trump has said he wants a better deal that will also bring in China. But Beijing refuses to negotiate with the other two countries because it has only a fraction of their warhead numbers – an estimated 600, compared with about 4,000 each for Russia and the US.

Lin reiterated this point, adding that China would not be joining the bilateral arms‑reduction talks.

“China’s nuclear forces are not on the same level as those of the United States and Russia, and China will not participate in disarmament negotiations at this stage,” Lin said.

Russia and the US together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.

China’s nuclear arsenal, however, is growing faster than any country’s, by about 100 new warheads a year since 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China is estimated to have at least 600 nuclear warheads, SIPRI says – well below the 800 each at which Russia and the US were capped under New START.

The White House said this week that Trump would decide the way forward on nuclear arms control, which he would “clarify on his own timeline”.

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called on the US and Russia to act with “responsibility and restraint” to maintain “global security”.

The official added that Russia and China were both ramping up their nuclear capabilities and that NATO “will continue to take steps necessary” to ensure its own defences.

February 13, 2026 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sorrowful day for peace largely ignored thruout America

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL, 7 Feb 26

The New Start Treaty between Russia and US expires today and America largely yawned. Big story on mainstream news? Faggedaboudit. Ask the person on the street about New Start and he might mutter something about giving disadvantaged kids free comprehensive early childhood education. Wait, wait…that’s Head Start.

Nope, New Start is the 16 year old treaty Obama signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on February 8, 2010. It caps the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy at 1,550 and limits the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers to 800. Still enough for either side to incinerate us all, but prevents a senseless arms race and symbolic of the critical need to reduce nuclear tensions.

But limited US Russian nuclear arsenals go back 54 years as 2010 Russian New Start signer Medvedev reminded us yesterday. “That’s it. For the first time since 1972, Russia (the former USSR) and the US have no treaty limiting strategic nuclear forces. SALT 1, SALT 2, START I, START II, SORT, New START – All in the past, winter is coming.”

President Trump rebuffed Russian President Putin’s offer to extend the limits for another year for sensible diplomacy to negotiate a new treaty.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the lame excuse that any new treaty must include China. But with a nuclear arsenal a pittance of the two nuclear giants, China demurred saying any treaty involving China must include US Russian nuclear stockpiles reduced to China’s level. Rubio knew his requirement was a poison pill deal breaker for any new extension of New Start.  

Dumping nuclear agreements is nothing new for Trump. He left office in January 20, 2021 ignoring New Start’s eminent expiration. Successor Biden promptly renewed New Start for 5 years, exactly 5 years ago today. This time Trump has succeeded in letting it expire on his watch.

This gives Trump a trifecta in dumping critically needed nuclear agreements. In August 2019 Trump withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that banned all land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km. . In November 2020, just before leaving office, Trump withdrew from the 2002 Open Skies Treaty which allowed the US and Russia to conduct short-notice, unarmed reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory to monitor military activities. 

The only positive glimmer to put on Trump’s refusal to extend New Start, even for a measly year to negotiate a long term agreement? Trump has no more nuclear agreements to withdraw from in the last sorrowful 3 years of his second term.

This January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock, symbolic of approaching global catastrophe, to 85 seconds to Midnight, the closest in its 79 year history. With Trump president, the Bulletin might want to quickly reconvene for another gander at our march toward world annihilation. Next January, none of us might around to hear the 2027 announcement.

February 8, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

US and Russia negotiating New START deal – Axios.

The issue was reportedly discussed on the sidelines of the Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi

5 Feb, 2026 , https://www.rt.com/news/632065-us-russia-negotiate-new-start/

Moscow and Washington are working on a deal to continue the New START nuclear reduction treaty, Axios reported on Thursday, citing three sources familiar with the issue. The strategic arms control agreement officially expired on February 5.

Signed in 2010, the treaty put caps on the number of strategic nuclear warheads and launchers that can be deployed and establishes monitoring mechanisms for both Russian and American arsenals. It was initially set to expire in 2021 but was extended for five years at the time.

According to Axios, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff discussed the issue with the Russian delegation on the sidelines of the Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi. “We agreed with Russia to operate in good faith and to start a discussion about ways it could be updated,” a US official told the media outlet. Another source claimed that the sides had agreed to observe the treaty’s terms for at least six months as the talks on a potential new deal would be ongoing.

Earlier on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow suggested sticking to the treaty’s provisions for another year but its initiative “remained unanswered.” Russia will “keep its responsible attentive approach in the field of strategic stability [and] nuclear weapons” but will be always “primarily guided by its national interests,” he said.

The UN also called the treaty expiration “a grave moment for international peace and security.” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades” as he urged Moscow and Washington to negotiate a successor framework.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier proposed to his US counterpart Donald Trump a one-year extension of the treaty but the American president said that he wanted a “better” agreement that includes China.

On Thursday, Peskov said that China considers joining the talks on a new treaty “pointless” since its nuclear arsenal is incompatible with that of Russia and the US. “We respect this position,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

February 7, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Barring last-minute nuclear deal, US and Russia teeter on brink of new arms race.

Reuters, By Mark Trevelyan and Jonathan Landay. January 30, 2026

  • Summary
  • New START treaty set to expire on February 5
  • Trump hasn’t responded to Putin’s offer to extend missile limits
  • End in sight to more than 50 years of mutual constraints
  • Chinese build-up leaves US facing two big nuclear rivals

LONDON/WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The United States and Russia could embark on an unrestrained nuclear arms race for the first time since the Cold War, unless they reach an eleventh-hour deal before their last remaining arms control treaty expires in less than a week.

The New START treaty is set to end on February 5. Without it, there would be no constraints on long-range nuclear arsenals for the first time since Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed two historic agreements in 1972 on the first-ever trip by a U.S. president to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed the two sides should stick to existing missile and warhead limits for one more year to buy time to work out what comes next, but U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to formally respond.

Trump said this month that “if it expires, it expires”, and that the treaty should be replaced with a better one.

Some U.S. politicians argue Trump should reject Putin’s offer, freeing Washington to grow its arsenal to counter a rapid nuclear build-up by a third power: China.

Trump says he wants to pursue “denuclearisation” with both Russia and China. But Beijing says it is unreasonable to expect it to join disarmament talks with two countries whose arsenals are still far larger than its own.

WHY DO NUCLEAR TREATIES MATTER?

Since the darkest Cold War days when the United States and the Soviet Union threatened each other with “mutually assured destruction” in the event of nuclear war, both have seen arms limitation treaties as a way to prevent either a lethal misunderstanding or an economically ruinous arms race.

The treaties not only set numerical limits on missiles and warheads, they also require the sides to share information – a critical channel to “try to understand where the other side is coming from and what their concerns and drivers are”, said Darya Dolzikova at the RUSI think-tank in London.

With no new treaty, each would be forced to act according to worst-case assumptions about the weapons the other is producing, testing and deploying, said Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian arms negotiator.

“It’s a self-sustaining kind of process. And of course, if you’ve got an unregulated arms race, things will get quite destabilising,” he said.

NEW TREATY NO SIMPLE TASK

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and the United States have repeatedly replaced and updated the Cold War-era treaties that limited the so-called strategic weapons they point at each other’s cities and bases.

The most recent, New START, was signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally who was then serving as Russian president for four years.

It caps the number of deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side, with no more than 700 systems to deliver them from land, sea or air, by intercontinental ballistic missile, submarine-launched missile or heavy bomber.

Replacing it with a new treaty would be no simple task. Russia has developed new nuclear-capable systems – the Burevestnik cruise missile, the hypersonic Oreshnik and the Poseidon torpedo – that fall outside New START’s framework. And Trump has announced plans for a space-based “Golden Dome” missile defence system that Moscow sees as an attempt to shift the strategic balance……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/barring-last-minute-nuclear-deal-us-russia-teeter-brink-new-arms-race-2026-01-30/

February 2, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

The secret nuclear influencer in the heart of Moscow.

Dr Eva Stegen 21st Jan 2026

Nuclear energy does not appear in any of the 19 EU sanctions packages, thanks to a key individual. Former nuclear power executive Henri Proglio has maintained several consulting offices in Moscow, the heart of Putin’s power, for the past 10 years. The former head of the state-owned Électricité de France (EdF) still sits on the international advisory board of Putin’s nuclear power conglomerate Rosatom.

Déjà vu: A wave of outrage swept through Germany when the “family business owners” tested the boundaries by extending an invitation to the AfD. The business lobby group eventually backtracked. The German “corporate families” may have been inspired by French far-right extremists who have been casting their nets into corporate boardrooms for some time. The French trial balloon was launched two years ago, a few months before the elections, and provoked a media frenzy. Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate of the National Rally (RN), orchestrated a meeting with an extremely polarizing manager: Henri Proglio. He was one of the country’s most powerful business leaders until he was deemed inferior at the nuclear power company Électricité de France (EdF).

Critics consider the self-proclaimed Putin supporter, who calls himself a “killer ,” to be “not as successful as he would have people believe .” They claim he has “developed a system of clans, gangs, and sinecures” that promoted nuclear technology exports to crisis regions. Under his leadership (2009-2014), he forged ties with Chinese rulers, the Libyan dictator Gaddafi , the Saudi Bin Laden Group, and other dubious business partners. His mentor, Nicolas Sarkozy, was imprisoned over the Libya affair. Another key figure in this corrupt clique, the secret protector of Proglio’s career, “Monsieur Alexandre,” also received a prison sentence. Proglio’s enforcer, a former gang leader from the Parisian suburbs , knows prison from the inside. The middleman rose from the underworld to the highest circles of politics and business: “I hold them all by the balls .”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Proglio and the National Rally (RN) are advocating for a “Frexit,” wanting to withdraw from the EU electricity market and give preferential treatment to French companies. These ideas of European division are welcomed by the Kremlin. ………………………………

the fact that “the fuels that power our nuclear power plants largely 
come  from Russia” amounts to nothing less than import dependency . And this is with a high-risk technology of civil-military relevance. 


“Why is the nuclear industry spared?”
Investigate Europe and Tagesspiegel asked back in 2022. Nuclear power does not appear in a single one of the (now 19) EU sanctions packages. In their joint research, they show:
 “ The close connection between the French and Russian nuclear industries is exemplified not least by Henri Proglio , the former CEO of the French state-owned electricity supplier EDF, who still sits on the international advisory board of Rosatom ,” the Russian nuclear conglomerate used by Vladimir Putin as a geopolitical instrument to expand his influence in Europe.

No nuclear sanctions – thanks to import dependency and a key personnel decision

In addition to his position at Rosatom, Proglio has maintained several consulting offices in Moscow for the past ten years, profiting handsomely from Putin’s war in Ukraine and orchestrating shady deals, including in the nuclear sector. This is particularly sensitive because he is privileged to the most closely guarded secrets of France, a civilian-military nuclear power. While he can keep secrets—he even concealed the lucrative activities of companies like ‘Henri Proglio Consulting’ and ‘HP Energy Advisory’ in Moscow from the parliamentary inquiry committee—it is highly questionable whether this is always in the best interests of France or Europe.

……………………….He believes the existing reactors should be allowed to operate until a medium-power reactor (1000 MW) is developed. He himself is responsible for the sale of the intellectual property rights for precisely this technology to China. That was the death knell for the French reactor manufacturer Areva.

ts engineers were stunned when they discovered a Chinese pirated copy of their plans, developed with Japanese colleagues for a 1000 MW reactor. Proglio was behind it: 
“We will build Franco-Chinese reactors. And we will also build Franco-Russian reactors.” He himself was present at the  clandestine signing of far-reaching contracts , which amounted to a ticket into the heart of France’s highly sensitive nuclear infrastructure. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Rosatom’s geostrategy for global dependence

According to its own statements, “Rosatom is the only company worldwide that possesses all technologies of the nuclear fuel cycle .” The nuclear giant, with its 450 arms, employs around 420,000 people and aims to establish itself as the world market leader in the entire nuclear process chain, from uranium mining through conversion, enrichment, fuel element production, reactor construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning, to waste management…………………………………………………………………………………….https://www-eva–stegen-de.translate.goog/blog/atom-Influencer-im-herzen-moskaus.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

January 24, 2026 Posted by | France, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

This country wants to build a nuclear power plant on the moon.

The project aims to supply energy for its lunar space programme

Guy Faulconbridge, Tuesday 20 January 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/space/russia-china-space-race-moon-nuclear-b2904029.html

Russia is reportedly planning to establish a nuclear power plant on the moon within the next decade.

This ambitious project aims to supply energy for its lunar space programme and a joint research station with China, as global powers intensify their efforts in lunar exploration.

Historically, Russia has held a prominent position in space, notably with Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering journey in 1961.

However, its dominance has waned in recent decades, with the nation now trailing behind the United States and, increasingly, China.

The country’s lunar aspirations faced a significant setback in August 2023 when its uncrewed Luna-25 mission crashed during a landing attempt.

Furthermore, the landscape of space launches, once a Russian speciality, has been revolutionised by figures such as Elon Musk, adding to the competitive pressure.

Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, said in a statement that it planned to build a lunar power plant by 2036 and signed a contract with the Lavochkin Association aerospace company to do it.

Roscosmos said the purpose of the plant was to power Russia’s lunar programme, including rovers, an observatory and the infrastructure of the joint Russian-Chinese International Lunar Research Station.

“The project is an important step towards the creation of a permanently functioning scientific lunar station and the transition from one-time missions to a long-term lunar exploration program,” Roscosmos said.

Roscosmos did not say explicitly that the plant would be nuclear but it said the participants included Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s leading nuclear research institute.

The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, said in June that one of the corporation’s aims was to put a nuclear power plant on the moon and to explore Venus, known as Earth’s “sister” planet.

The moon, which is 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from our planet, moderates Earth’s wobble on its axis, which ensures a more stable climate. It also causes tides in the world’s oceans.

January 23, 2026 Posted by | Russia, space travel | Leave a comment

Russia says it awaits US response on ‘important’ issue of expiring nuclear treaty

By Dmitry Antonov, January 15, 2026, Reporting by Dmitry Antonov Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn Editing by Andrew Osborn, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-awaits-us-response-important-issue-expiring-nuclear-treaty-2026-01-15/

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Russia is still waiting for the United States to respond to President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to informally extend for a year the provisions of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the two countries, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

The New START treaty is due to expire in three weeks, and President Donald Trump has not formally responded to the offer that Putin made last September.

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“No, we have not received a response. We are certainly awaiting a response to Putin’s initiative; we consider this a very important topic,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

New START, which was signed by presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, sets limits on the strategic weapons that each side would use to target the other’s critical political and military centres in the event of a nuclear war. It caps the number of deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side, with no more than 700 deployed ground- or submarine-launched missiles and bomber planes to deliver them.

It is the last in a series of treaties dating back to the early 1970s that have enabled Moscow and Washington to maintain a stable nuclear balance even at times of acute international tension.

Trump told the New York Times this month that “if it expires, it expires”, and that he wanted to replace it with a more ambitious treaty including China.

China, whose arsenal is growing fast but remains a fraction of the size of Moscow’s or Washington’s, says it is unreasonable and unrealistic to ask it to join three-way disarmament talks.

Asked about Trump’s comments on a successor treaty, Peskov said this would be good for everyone but would involve a “very complex and drawn-out process”.

“As for our Chinese friends, their position is well known, and we respect it.”

Peskov reasserted Russia’s position that any discussion of strategic stability and security must take into account the nuclear arsenals of Britain and France.

January 19, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Spectral Threats: China, Russia and Trump’s Greenland Rationale

Were Russia or China to attempt an occupation of Greenland through military means, Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty would come into play, obliging NATO member states, including the United States, to collectively repel the effort.

“There are no Russian and Chinese ships all over the place around Greenland,” 

“Russia and/or China has no capacity to occupy Greenland or to take control over Greenland.”

14 January 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/spectral-threats-china-russia-and-trumps-greenland-rationale/

The Trump administration’s mania about Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, is something to behold. Its untutored thuggery, its brash assertiveness, and the increasingly strident threats to either use force, bully Denmark into a sale of the island, or simply annex the territory, have officials and commentators scrambling for theories and precedents. The Europeans are terrified that the NATO alliance is under threat from another NATO member. The Greenlanders are anxious and confused. But the ground for further action by Washington is being readied by finding threats barely real and hardly plausible.

The concerns about China and Russia seizing Greenland retells the same nonsense President Donald Trump promoted in kidnapping the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Looking past the spurious narcoterrorism claims against the former leader, it fell to the issue of who would control the natural resources of the country. If we don’t get Venezuelan oil now and secure it for American companies, the Chinese or the Russians will. he gangster’s rationale is crudely reductionist, seeing all in a similar veinThe obsession with Beijing and Moscow runs like a forced thread through a dotty, insular rationale that repels evidence and cavorts with myth: “We need that [territory],” reasons the President, “because if you take a look outside Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and, bigger, there are Russian submarines all over the place. We are not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re going to do if we don’t.” On Denmark’s military capabilities in holding the island against any potential aggressor, Trump could only snort with macho dismissiveness. “You know what their defence is? Two dog sleds.”

This scratchy logic is unsustainable for one obvious point. Were Russia or China to attempt an occupation of Greenland through military means, Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty would come into play, obliging NATO member states, including the United States, to collectively repel the effort. With delicious perversity, any US effort to forcibly acquire the territory through use of force would be an attack on its own security, given its obligations under the Treaty. In such cases, it becomes sound to assume, as the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen does, that the alliance would cease to exist.

Such matters are utterly missed by the rabidly hawkish Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who declared that, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” It was up to the US “to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests” in incorporating Greenland. To take territory from a NATO ally was essentially doing it good.

Given that the United States already has a military presence on the island at the Pituffik Space Base, and rights under the 1951 agreement that would permit an increase in the number of bases should circumstances require it, along with the Defence Cooperation Agreement finalised with Copenhagen in June 2025, much of Miller’s airings are not merely farcical but redundant. Yet, Trump has made it clear that signatures and understandings reflected in documents are no substitute for physically taking something, the thrill of possession that, by its act, deprives someone else of it. “I think ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty,” he told the New York Times. “Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

What, then, of these phantom forces from Moscow and Beijing, supposedly lying in wait to seize the frozen prize? “There are no Russian and Chinese ships all over the place around Greenland,” states the very convinced research director of the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Andreas Østhagen. “Russia and/or China has no capacity to occupy Greenland or to take control over Greenland.”

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen is similarly inclined. “The image that’s being painted of Russian and Chinese ships right inside the Nuuk fjord and massive Chinese investments being made is not correct.” Senior “Nordic diplomats” quoted in the Financial Times add to that version, even if the paper is not decent enough to mention which Nordic country they come from. “It is simply not true that the Chinese and Russians are there,” said one. “I have seen the intelligence. There are no ships, no submarines.” Vessel tracking data from Marine Traffic and LSEG have so far failed to disclose the presence of Chinese and Russian ships near the island.

Heating engineer Lars Vintner, based in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, wondered where these swarming, spectral Chinese were based. “The only Chinese I see,” he told Associated Press,“ is when I go to the fast food market.” This sparse presence extends to the broader security footprint of China in the Arctic, which remains modest despite a growing collaboration with Russia since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. These have included Arctic and coast guard operations, while the Chinese military uses satellites and icebreakers equipped with deep-sea mini submarines, potentially for mapping the seabed.  

However negligible and piffling the imaginary threat, analysts, ever ready with a larding quote or a research brief, are always on hand to show concern with such projects as Beijing’s Polar Silk Road, announced in 2018, which is intended as the Arctic extension of its transnational Belt and Road initiative. The subtext: Trump should not seize Greenland, but he might have a point. “China has clear ambitions to expand its footprint and influence in the region, which it considers… an emerging arena for geopolitical competition.” Or so says Helena Legarda of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.

The ludicrous nature of Trump’s claims and acquisitive urges supply fertile material for sarcasm. A prominent political figure from one of the alleged conquerors-to-be made an effort almost verging on satire. “Trump needs to hurry up,” mocked the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and former President Dmitry Medvedev. “According to unverified information, within a few days, there could be a sudden referendum where all 55,000 residents of Greenland might vote to join Russia. And that’s it!” With Trump, “that’s it” never quite covers it.

January 17, 2026 Posted by | ARCTIC, China, politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

The Non-Peaceful Atom

Vladimir Slivyak, January 7, 2026, https://www.posle.media/article/the-non-peaceful-atom

In what ways does Russia use nuclear energy as a strategic tool? Why have sanctions failed to end Europe’s dependence on the Russian nuclear industry? How is Rosatom involved in the war? Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Eco-Defense group, answers these questions

As a strategic instrument of the Kremlin, Rosatom helps to create and entrench geopolitical dependencies. This dependence rests on the promotion of nuclear energy but has ramifications that extend far beyond the energy sector. Rosatom is both directly and indirectly involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine. In particular, Rosatom played a key role in Russia’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and has offered to procure materials and components for Russian arms manufacturers under sanctions.

Nevertheless, the European nuclear industry continues to collaborate with Rosatom. For instance, Rosatom supplies uranium to Framatome’s ANF nuclear fuel plant in Lingen, Germany. Rosatom is also involved in expanding this facility, even though the German authorities have not yet approved such cooperation. If the Framatome-Rosatom project, which has been in development for over three years, goes ahead, the Russian regime will further strengthen its political influence in Western Europe despite the war in Ukraine.

Rosatom as a Civil-Military State Corporation

Rosatom is a state-owned corporation that operates in both the civilian and military spheres of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. As the successor to Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy, Rosatom brings together over 350 companies engaged in nuclear activities. The corporation was created by a decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007.

Rosatom is directly owned by the Russian state. It is one of seven Russian “state corporations,” grouped together with Rostec, Roscosmos, and others. In 2012, former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev described Rosatom as a “corporation of a special kind” that not only seeks to expand its activities but also carries out “certain ministerial tasks.”

The corporation’s Supervisory Board is its main decision-making body. This board includes Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, who is currently under sanctions from the EU, the UK, and the US, as well as Sergei Korolev, the first deputy director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (the main successor to the Soviet KGB). In relation to the war in Ukraine, Korolev has also been sanctioned by the EU, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK, and Ukraine. The Supervisory Board also includes two Russian deputy prime ministers and two aides to President Vladimir Putin. 

The European Parliament has repeatedly called for sanctions on Rosatom and for an end to all nuclear cooperation with Russia, including uranium imports and investments in critical infrastructure. 

Participation in the War

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Rosatom has been directly and indirectly involved in the war. According to a letter obtained by Ukrainian intelligence and published in the American press, Rosatom offered assistance to the Russian arms industry in securing goods needed for the production of weapons, tanks, and aircraft after that sector had been hit by international sanctions.

In his December 2022 address to Rosatom on the occasion of its 15th anniversary, President Vladimir Putin praised the corporation for its “enormous contribution to the development and deployment of advanced weapons systems and military equipment.”


In the early days of the invasion, Rosatom employees assisted Russian troops who occupied the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine. The Russian state corporation also facilitated the illegal seizure of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Rosatom employees have taken over key management positions at the facility. Following a decree by the Russian president, Rosatom created a new subsidiary specifically tasked with taking control of the plant.

In October 2023, Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom reported that the safety culture at the plant was deteriorating under Rosatom’s control. This deterioration included poorly performed work, insufficient staffing, and inadequate inspections. The company stated that these problems had led to significant damage to critical components of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), including leaks in the radioactive primary coolant circuit. There is also credible evidence that Rosatom employees assisted the Russian military in selecting targets at the Zaporizhzhya NPP; they reportedly “helped direct Russian artillery fire at the plant.” 

Rosatom as a Geopolitical Tool 

Rosatom is a central player in the Russian regime’s “geopolitics.” The company’s goal is to make as many countries as possible dependent on Russian nuclear technology, services, and fuel. Rosatom purchases essential equipment for nuclear reactors under construction from European companies and supplies the EU with unenriched and enriched uranium, fuel, and other nuclear services. This cooperation helps fund the continuation of the war in Ukraine. It also locks Europe into dependence on Russian nuclear fuel and services, which ultimately translates into political influence. 

Hungary is perhaps the clearest example. It is almost entirely dependent on Russia for nuclear energy services and has repeatedly blocked any attempt by the EU to impose sanctions on Rosatom. Russia controls the supply of nuclear fuel and the maintenance of existing Hungarian reactors and has provided a €10 billion loan for the construction of Paks-2 nuclear power plant. In addition, Siemens Energy and Framatome are providing key equipment and control systems for new Russian-made reactors in Hungary.

Rosatom states that it is currently building more than 30 new reactors in about a dozen countries. Last year, its subsidiaries exported approximately $2.2 billion worth of nuclear energy-related goods and materials. The Russian state budget covers more than 90% of the cost of Rosatom’s construction of new nuclear power plants around the world.

Rosatom has signed agreements with nearly 20 African countries to build nuclear power plants and research reactors. So far, however, only one plant is actually under construction: the Al Dabaa plant in Egypt. Rosatom has also purchased a uranium mine in Tanzania. A previous attempt to build a nuclear power plant in South Africa collapsed due to resistance from environmental activists. In South America, Rosatom is involved in smaller but still significant projects, such as a research reactor and lithium mining in Bolivia.

Despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, the French nuclear company Framatome continues to purchase uranium from Rosatom. Between 2022 to 2023, at least ten shipments of uranium went from Russia to the ANF nuclear fuel plant in Lingen, a Framatome subsidiary. According to the German government, these deliveries took place under two federal government licenses issued in September, November, and December 2022, as well as in April and May 2023. In August 2023, German authorities granted a new license authorizing up to 40 more shipments. Deliveries are still ongoing. 

Prospects

In the four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, the EU has adopted nearly twenty packages of sanctions against the Russian economy and industry. Other countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan, have also imposed sanctions. However, Russia has faced virtually no pressure in the field of nuclear energy, one of its key sectors with both civilian and military significance. On the contrary, Rosatom has expanded its operations and almost tripled its profits from trade with Western countries. 

Europe’s dependence on Russia in the nuclear sphere is roughly comparable to its reliance on pipeline gas supplies before the war. First, Putin used gas deliveries as leverage over Europe, and then the Russian pipeline was destroyed in an act of sabotage. Without these developments, we would now likely be talking about the EU’s crippling dependence on Russia for both uranium and pipeline gas. In such a situation, it is reasonable to assume that Ukraine would not have been able to rely on the level of support it currently enjoys in Europe. 

This dependence on Russian supplies did not arise by a happy accident for Moscow but from strategic steps the Russian regime has taken over the past 10–15 years. It is not known for certain whether Putin had been planning a full-scale war throughout this entire period. However, it is clear that making Europe’s economy as dependent as possible on Russian energy supplies was one of Moscow’s strategic priorities. Under this strategy, many European countries were meant to end up in the position Hungary finds itself in today.

As a result of the war in Ukraine, Europe’s dependence on Russian supplies has fallen sharply, though it has not disappeared. For instance, Germany, the EU’s largest economy, no longer relies on Russian pipeline gas. The fight against the “shadow fleet” transporting Putin’s oil to fund the war is under way, albeit with mixed results. Furthermore, Russian coal has been completely banned from Europe. Russia’s coal industry, one of the most profitable, is currently in a deep crisis — direct evidence that Russia has been unable to offset the consequences of Europe’s refusal to buy Russian coal. Even in the nuclear energy sector, the least affected by sanctions, there have been notable shifts. For instance, Finland has abandoned plans to build a major nuclear power plant with Russian involvement. In several cases, European companies have been unable to supply Rosatom with equipment for its projects in other countries.

Unfortunately, efforts to reduce dependence on Russian uranium are progressing extremely slowly, and there is still no clear timeline for this process. A full break with Russian uranium in the foreseeable future seems unlikely, especially if Hungary goes ahead with a new nuclear power plant project involving Rosatom. Russia is also trying to increase its liquefied natural gas exports to Europe. However, it now seems unlikely that European authorities will once again allow a situation in which Vladimir Putin can make their economies dependent on Russia.

Rosatom is arguably the biggest Russian thorn in Europe’s flesh today, and half-measures won’t remove it. A “surgical extraction”  would cause severe and painful shocks to the economies — and, in turn, the politics — of several EU member states. The problem is not that the threat is underestimated; Europe understands it perfectly well. The issue is that freeing itself from this nuclear dependence would require enormous time and effort. The question is: will there be enough of either? 

January 14, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Plunging Toward Armageddon: U.S. and Russia on the Brink of a New Nuclear Arms Race

Beginning on February 6th, Russian and American leaders will face no barriers whatsoever to the expansion of those arsenals or to any other steps that might increase the danger of a thermonuclear conflagration.

Both the United States and Russia have already committed vast sums to the “modernization” of their nuclear delivery systems

By Michael Klare. 8 Jan 26, https://tomdispatch.com/plunging-into-the-abyss/


Plunging Into the Abyss. Will the U.S. and Russia Abandon All Nuclear Restraints?

For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take.

It’s hard to imagine today, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) jointly possessed 47,000 nuclear warheads — enough to exterminate all life on Earth many times over. But as public fears of nuclear annihilation increased, especially after the near-death experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of those two countries negotiated a series of binding agreements intended to downsize their arsenals and reduce the risk of Armageddon.

The initial round of those negotiations, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, began in November 1969 and culminated in the first-ever nuclear arms-limitation agreement, SALT-I, in May 1972. That would then be followed in June 1979 by SALT-II (signed by both parties, though never ratified by the U.S. Senate) and two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), in 1991 and 1993, respectively. Each of those treaties reduced the number of deployed nuclear warheads on U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers.
In a drive to reduce those numbers even further, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in April 2010, an agreement limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side — still enough to exterminate all life on Earth, but a far cry from the START I limit of 6,000 warheads per side. Originally set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021, New START was extended for another five years (as allowed by the treaty), resetting that expiration date for February 5, 2026, now fast approaching. And this time around, neither party has demonstrated the slightest inclination to negotiate a new extension.

So, the question is: What, exactly, will it mean for New START to expire for good on February 5th?

Most of us haven’t given that a lot of thought in recent decades, because nuclear arsenals have, for the most part, been shrinking and the (apparent) threat of a nuclear war among the great powers seemed to diminish substantially. We have largely escaped the nightmarish experience — so familiar to veterans of the Cold War era — of fearing that the latest crisis, whatever it might be, could result in our being exterminated in a thermonuclear holocaust.

A critical reason for our current freedom from such fears is the fact that the world’s nuclear arsenals had been substantially diminished and that the two major nuclear powers had agreed to legally binding measures, including mutual inspections of their arsenals, meant to reduce the danger of unintended or accidental nuclear war. Together, those measures were crafted to ensure that each side would retain an invulnerable, second-strike nuclear retaliatory force, eliminating any incentive to initiate a nuclear first strike.

Unfortunately, those relatively carefree days will come to an end at midnight on February 5th.

Beginning on February 6th, Russian and American leaders will face no barriers whatsoever to the expansion of those arsenals or to any other steps that might increase the danger of a thermonuclear conflagration. And from the look of things, both intend to seize that opportunity and increase the likelihood of Armageddon. Worse yet, China’s leaders, pointing to a lack of restraint in Washington and Moscow, are now building up their own nuclear arsenal, only adding further fuel to the urge of American and Russian leaders to blow well past the (soon-to-be-abandoned) New START limits.

A Future Nuclear Arms Race?

Even while adhering to those New START limits of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, both Russia and the United States had taken elaborate and costly steps to enhance the destructive power of their arsenals by replacing older, less-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and nuclear bombers with newer, even more capable ones. As a result, each side was already becoming better equipped to potentially inflict catastrophic damage on its opponent’s nuclear retaliatory forces, making a first strike less inconceivable and so increasing the risk of precipitous escalation in a crisis.

The Russian Federation inherited a vast nuclear arsenal from the former Soviet Union, but many of those systems had already become obsolete or unreliable. To ensure that it maintained an arsenal at least as potent as Washington’s, Moscow sought to replace all of the Soviet-era weapons in its inventory with more modern and capable systems, a process still underway. Russia’s older SS-18 ICBMs, for example, are being replaced by the faster, more powerful SS-29 Sarmat, while its remaining five Delta-IV class missile-carrying submarines (SSBNs) are being replaced by the more modern Borei class. And newer ICBMs, SLBMs, and SSBNs are said to be in development.

At present, Russia possesses 333 ICBMs, approximately half of them deployed in silos and the other half on road-mobile carriers. It also has 192 SLBMs on 12 missile-carrying submarines and possesses 67 strategic bombers, each capable of firing multiple nuclear-armed missiles. Supposedly, those systems are currently loaded with no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads (enough, of course, to destroy several planets), as mandated by the New START treaty. However, many of Russia’s land- and sea-based ballistic missiles are MIRVed (meaning they’re capable of launching multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) but not fully loaded, and so could carry additional warheads if a decision were ever made to do so. Given that Russia possesses as many as 2,600 nuclear warheads in storage, it could rapidly increase the number of deployed nuclear weapons at its disposal beginning on February 6, 2026.

Rather than confront such challenges, the leaders of both countries may instead choose to retain the New START limits voluntarily. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has already agreed to a one-year extension of this sort, if the United States is willing to do likewise. But pressures (which are bound to increase after February 5th) are also building to abandon those limits and begin deploying additional warheadsmost missile-tracking radars.

The United States is engaged in a comparable drive to modernize its arsenal, replacing older weapons with more modern systems. Like Russia, the U.S. maintains a “triad” of nuclear delivery systems — land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched SLBMs, and long-range bombers, each of which is now being upgraded with new warheads at an estimated cost over the next quarter century of approximately $1.5 trillion.

The existing New START-limited U.S. nuclear triad consists of 400 silo-based Minuteman-III ICBMs, 240 Trident-II SLBMs carried by 14 Ohio-class submarines (two of which are assumedly being overhauled at any time), and 96 strategic bombers (20 B-2s and 76 B-52s) armed with a variety of gravity bombs and air-launched cruise missiles. According to current plans, the Minuteman-IIIs will be replaced by Sentinel ICBMs, the Ohio-class SSBNs by Columbia-class ones, and the B-2s and B-52s by the new B-21 Raider bomber. Each of those new systems incorporates important features — greater accuracy, increased stealth, enhanced electronics — that make them even more useful as first-strike weapons, were a decision ever made to use them in such a fashion.

When initiated, the U.S. nuclear modernization project was expected to abide by the New START limit of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads. After February 5th, however, the U.S. will be under no legal obligation to do so. It could quickly begin efforts to exceed that limit by loading all existing Minuteman-IIIs and future Sentinel missiles on MIRVed rather than single-warhead projectiles and loading the Trident missiles (already MIRVed) with a larger number of warheads, as well as by increasing production of new B-21s. The United States has also commenced development of a new delivery system, the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N), supposedly intended for use in a “limited” regional nuclear conflict in Europe or Asia (though how such a conflagration could be prevented from igniting a global holocaust has never been explained).

In short, after the expiration of the New START agreement, neither Russia nor the United States will be obliged to limit the numbers of nuclear warheads on their strategic delivery systems, possibly triggering a new global nuclear arms race with no boundaries in sight and an ever-increasing risk of precipitous nuclear escalation. Whether they choose to do so will depend on the political environment in both countries and their bilateral relations, as well as elite perceptions of China’s nuclear buildup in both Washington and Moscow.

The Political Environment

Both the United States and Russia have already committed vast sums to the “modernization” of their nuclear delivery systems, a process that won’t be completed for years. At present, there is a reasonably broad consensus in both Washington and Moscow on the need to do so. However, any attempt to increase the speed of that process or add new nuclear capabilities will generate immense costs along with significant supply-chain challenges (at a time when both countries are also trying to ramp up their production of conventional, non-nuclear arms), creating fresh political disputes and potential fissures.

Rather than confront such challenges, the leaders of both countries may instead choose to retain the New START limits voluntarily. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has already agreed to a one-year extension of this sort, if the United States is willing to do likewise. But pressures (which are bound to increase after February 5th) are also building to abandon those limits and begin deploying additional warheads.

In Washington, a powerful constellation of government officials, conservative pundits, weapons industry leaders, and congressional hawks is already calling for a nuclear buildup that would exceed the New START limits, claiming that a bigger arsenal is needed to deter both a more aggressive Russia and a more powerful China. As Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, put it in June 2024, “Absent a change in the trajectory of the adversary arsenal, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required, and we need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision.”

Those who favor such a move regularly point to China’s nuclear buildup. Just a few years ago, China possessed only some 200 nuclear warheads, a small fraction of the 5,000 possessed by both Russia and the U.S. Recently, however, China has expanded its arsenal to an estimated 600 warheads, while deploying more ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-capable bombers. Chinese officials claim that such weaponry is needed to ensure retaliation against an enemy-first strike, but their very existence is being cited by nuclear hawks in Washington as a sufficient reason for the U.S. to move beyond the New START limits.

Russian leaders face an especially harsh quandary. At a moment when they are devoting so much of the country’s state finances and military-industrial capacities to the war in Ukraine, they face a more formidable and possibly expanded U.S. nuclear arsenal, not to mention the (largely unspoken) threat posed by China’s growing arsenal. Then there’s President Trump’s plan for building a “Golden Dome” missile shield, intended to protect the U.S. from any type of enemy projectile, including ICBMs — a system which, even if only partially successful, would threaten the credibility of Russia’s second-strike retaliatory capability. So, while Russia’s leaders would undoubtedly prefer to avoid a costly new arms buildup, they will probably conclude that they have little choice but to undertake one if the U.S. abandons New START.

Racing to Armageddon

Many organizations, individuals, and members of Congress are pleading with the Trump administration to accept Vladimir Putin’s proposal and agree to a voluntary continuation of the New START limits after February 5th. Any decision to abandon those limits, they argue, would only add hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal budget at a time when other priorities are being squeezed. Such a decision would also undoubtedly provoke reciprocal moves by Russia and China. The result would be an uncontrolled arms race and a rising risk of nuclear annihilation.

But even if Washington and Moscow were to agree to a one-year voluntary extension of New START, each would be free to break out of it at any moment. In that sense, February 6th is likely to bring us into a new era — not unlike the early years of the Cold War — in which the major powers will be poised to ramp up their nuclear war-fighting capabilities without any formal restrictions whatsoever. That comfortable feeling we once enjoyed of relative freedom from an imminent nuclear holocaust will also then undoubtedly begin to dissipate. If there is any hope in such a dark prognosis, it might be that such a reality could, in turn, ignite a worldwide anti-nuclear movement like the Ban the Bomb campaigns of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. If only.

January 12, 2026 Posted by | China, Russia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia-US nuclear pact set to end in 2026 and we won’t see another

After the New START treaty expires in February, there will be no cap on the number of US and Russian nuclear weapons – but some are sceptical about whether the deal actually made the world safer

By Matthew Sparkes, New Scientist, 30 December 2025

In February 2026, for the first time in decades, there will be no active treaty limiting the size of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Experts are divided on whether the New START treaty genuinely made the world safer, but there is far more agreement on one thing: a replacement is unlikely.

The US and Russia first agreed to place limits on their nuclear weapons and allow each to inspect the other’s stockpiles with the START I treaty in 1991, and this was succeeded by New START in 2011. In 2021, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to extend the treaty by five years. It is now due to expire on 5 February and talks on a replacement have faltered………………….(Subscribers only) https://www.newscientist.com/article/2504635-russia-us-nuclear-pact-set-to-end-in-2026-and-we-wont-see-another/

January 6, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

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