The Russians had a lot to say on the expiration of the New START Treaty on Feb. 13 just as the Munich Security Conference was getting underway.
Colonel Nikolay Shabaltas, former head of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces Combat Training Department, told TASS that the U.S. reluctance to extend the restrictions established by the New START Treaty (New START) indicates that it plans to upgrade its nuclear forces, .
“The first reason is that the U.S. wants to upgrade its nuclear forces and not be tied to Russia. The second is that they insist that Chinese missiles be included in this treaty in addition to Russian missiles and nuclear weapons,” Shabaltas said. According to him, the U.S. insists that the treaty “must be comprehensive—not limited to Russia and the U.S., but include all nuclear powers,” such as China, India, Great Britain, and France. (This list omits Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.)
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also addressed the expiration of New START in an interview with TASS. AT one point, a TASS correspondent joked that Trump would immediately agree to extend the New START Treaty if the agreement were renamed the “Donald Trump Global Security and Stability Treaty.”
“I want to point out that even during Trump’s first term, when there were fewer grounds for such jokes than now, we heard that his administration was dissatisfied with New START. Even then, we saw this as a sign that the treaty was designed correctly,” Ryabkov replied. He stressed that the New START was balanced, contained no unilateral concessions, and maintained a carefully calibrated balance of interests.
