US President Joe Biden termed it a “big mistake” following the suspension of nuclear arms treaty by Russian President Joe Biden on Thursday. Still, the American President did not read into the decision as an insinuation that Putin would consider using nuclear weapons.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday said – “It is a big mistake on their part. Not very responsible. But I don’t read into that that Putin is mulling over using nuclear weapons or anything of that kind.”
Addressing his state-of-the-nation meet, Putin announced that Russia is suspending its ‘New START treaty’ participation which happened to be the last major arms control agreement with America. Putin also did not forget to say in his address that Russia should be “prepared to re-start nuclear weapons tests should the United States does so”.
The move surfaced amidst the ongoing tensions between Russia and America over the Ukrainian war and this also followed a day after Biden’s unannounced tour to Kyiv with expressions of strong American support for Ukraine against Russia.
The number of nuclear warheads that America and Russia can deploy was being restricted by the New Start Agreement. As per this treaty, America and Russia had agreed to deployments of not more than 700 long-range missile bombers and 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads.
With Russian suspension of the Treaty following the Putin announcement, now America could lose access to monitoring and inspection of data on the number of nuclear warheads deployed by Russia along with the land and sea-based launching vehicles.
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Twelve years ago in the year 2011 when the treaty came into existence it was former US President Barack Obama with Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev who signed it with complete trust and amicability.
Significantly, Russia and America agreed on an extension of New START for the next five years for keeping it in force through February 4, 2026.
