NATO throws weight behind ‘destructive’ US approach against Russia on arms treaty

Members of the US-led military alliance of NATO have supported Washington’s accusations that Russia is violating the New START nuclear arms control treaty, days after Russia said it wanted to preserve the treaty despite a “destructive” US approach to arms control.

"NATO allies agree the New START Treaty contributes to international stability by constraining Russian and US strategic nuclear forces," the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top political body, said in a statement on Friday.

"Therefore, we note with concern that Russia has failed to comply with legally-binding obligations under the New START Treaty."

NATO also claimed that Russia had failed to facilitate US inspections on its territory since August last year, which the alliance said "undermines the United States’ ability to adequately verify Russian compliance with the Treaty’s central limits."

The NATO statement stressed, "We call on Russia to fulfill its obligations under the Treaty by facilitating New START inspections on Russian territory, and by returning to participation in the Treaty’s implementation body, the BCC (Bilateral Consultative Commission)."

The statement came three days after the US State Department accused Russia of violating the New START agreement, which is set to expire in three years without a replacement.

Russia says seeks to retain New START nuclear treaty with US

Russia says it seeks to preserve its last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the US, despite the latter

On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia considers “the continuation of this treaty very important,” describing it as the only one that remained “at least hypothetically viable.”

“Otherwise, we see that the United States has actually destroyed the legal framework” for arms control, he said.

Earlier, Russia had warned the United States that the treaty could expire in 2026 without a replacement because it said Washington was trying to inflict “strategic defeat” on Moscow in Ukraine.

Last year, Russia stopped allowing American inspectors onto its military sites, responding to travel restrictions imposed by the US on Russian inspectors in reaction to the initiation of a military operation by Moscow in Ukraine.

START I expired in late 2009 and its replacement, the New START or START III, was signed in April 2010 by then-US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, under which both sides agreed to halve the number of strategic nuclear missiles and restrict the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, the lowest level in decades.

The New START agreement was extended in February 2021 until February 4, 2026, by US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

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