A group of US senators proposed to withdraw from the Offensive Arms Treaty

A group of senators submitted to the US Congress a bill on the country’s withdrawal from the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty. This follows from a message published on the website of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.

Senators say the proposed bill would bolster US nuclear forces. In their opinion, the decision of the administration of US President Joe Biden to extend the agreement with Russia was a mistake and fettered the United States. “Failed to secure America and its allies, gave the Chinese the freedom to pursue a breathtaking buildup of strategic nuclear weapons systems, and allowed Russia to threaten to use its massive tactical nuclear weapons arsenal against Ukraine,” said Senator Jim Risch.

In their opinion, future arms control agreements should include all classes of nuclear weapons and apply to both Russia and China.

The initiators of the bill were Republican Senators Jim Rish, Tom Cotton, Rick Scott and others.

The START Treaty was signed in 2010 by Russian and US Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. The document spoke about the reduction of strategic nuclear forces to the level of 700 deployed and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic delivery vehicles. The treaty provided for detailed inspections at the sites of production and deployment of carriers of strategic nuclear weapons and the exchange of telemetry data during testing of new types of missiles. The contract was concluded for 10 years until 2021 with the possibility of extension for another five years. The administration of the former US President, Donald Trump, set conditions for the extension of the treaty that were impossible to fulfill in advance, such as China joining the negotiations on further reductions in strategic nuclear forces. But US President Joe Biden, who won the 2020 election, was a supporter of START and extended it shortly after his inauguration in early 2021. Russia then joined this decision.

In February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in his message that Moscow had decided to suspend the New START. He motivated this decision by the fact that under the conditions of a special military operation (SVO), US inspections of Russian enterprises and other facilities could be used to the detriment of Russia’s interests.