Moscow: President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would withdraw from the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) pact with the United States, which limits the two countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.
“In this regard, I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty,” Putin said at the close of a major speech to parliament, nearly a year into Ukraine’s war, Reuters reported.
The New START treaty was signed in Prague in 2010, went into effect the following year, and was renewed for five years in 2021, shortly after US President Joe Biden took office.
It restricts the amount of strategic nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can deploy, as well as the use of land-based and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
According to reports, Russia maintains the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, with around 6,000 warheads. Russia and the United States own almost 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear warheads, enough to destroy the planet several times over.
A day after US President Joe Biden’s secret visit to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday made a statement in the Parliament and slammed the West for its ‘lies’ and ‘fraud’. He stated that he was attempting to do things peacefully, but that “a difficult scenario was being prepared” behind his back
