Context

Russian President Vladimir Putin annaounced that their country is prepared to suspend the NEW START treaty with the U.S.A. because USA has showed no genuine interest in conducting talks on extending the New START treaty which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits.

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• Putin also said that the potential implications of letting New START treaty expire would be huge, suggesting its demise could fuel a nuclear arms race.
• Along with this, Russia also warned global catastrophe if Washington keeps dismantling a global arms control regime.
• Together with Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, New START is considered a centrepiece of superpower arms control.

New START Treaty

• The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed in April, 2010 in Prague by Russia and the USA and entered into force in February 2011.
• It replaced the 1991 START I treaty, which expired December 2009, and superseded the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which terminated when New START entered into force.
• It continues the bipartisan process of verifiably reducing USA and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals begun by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
• It is the first verifiable USA-Russian nuclear arms control treaty to take effect since START I in 1994.
• It does not limit the number of non-deployed ICBMs and SLBMs, but it does monitor them and provide for continuous information on their locations and on-site inspections to confirm that they are not added to the deployed force.

INF nuclear treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF treaty, bans Russia and the United States from possessing, producing or conducting test flights of ground-launched cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (310 to 3,420 miles). It allows sea-based and air-delivered missiles at those ranges as well as research and development of ground-launched systems. It was signed between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. By the time it was implemented in 1991 an entire class of conventional and nuclear-capable missile systems had been destroyed, boosting security at the end of the Cold War. It remained in force after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Earlier this year, USA announced its intention to withdraw from this treaty within six months.