On February 21, during his address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was suspending its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START or START III), signed by Russia and the United States. in 2010. RTVI understood exactly what Moscow’s actions mean, whether it is possible to maintain agreements on nuclear weapons and whether it is worth fearing a further escalation in the arms race.
“They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and climb over our nuclear facilities. In this regard, I must announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty,” Vladimir Putin said, stressing that Moscow was not withdrawing from the treaty, but only suspending its participation in it.
To resume dialogue on further work under New START, Russia must understand how to take into account the combined nuclear capabilities of other NATO countries with offensive nuclear weapons (NW) – Britain and France, whose warhead arsenals are not subject to the treaty, Putin stressed. The president also blamed the United States for developing new types of nuclear weapons and possible nuclear weapons testing projects.
At the US State Department called Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in START is “regrettable” and “irresponsible”. At the same time, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken indicated that Washington was not abandoning the dialogue on nuclear security. “We remain ready to discuss with Russia the limitation of strategic arms at any time, regardless of what is happening in the world or in our [т.е. российско-американских] relationship,” he said.
The Treaty does not provide for the possibility of suspending the performance of obligations, but the process of withdrawing it is prescribed in paragraph 3 of Article XIV. It follows that each of the parties can withdraw from START if it decides that the execution of the obligations of the treaty endangers “its superior interests”. In this case, it is necessary to inform the partners about the agreement in advance and indicate in detail the reason for the withdrawal. Upon notification, the contract will be automatically terminated after three months.
What does START offer?
START was signed by Russian and US Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on April 8, 2010 in Prague. The agreement entered into force in February 2011 for a period of 10 years. In 2021, Vladimir Putin signed a law extending the agreement for five years.
START III replaced the START I treaty, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and George W. Bush six months before the collapse of the USSR, in June 1991. START-I was not ratified until 1994 and was valid until in 2009 (START-II was also signed, but Russia withdrew from it in 2002 – immediately after the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty).
Under START III (START), the United States and Russia are required to reduce their nuclear arsenals and warhead deployment capabilities to the following numbers:
no more than 1,500 nuclear warheads (does not apply to warheads in long-term storage); no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers (TBs); no more than 100 additional undeployed launchers (not combat-ready and used for missile training or testing not filled with nuclear warheads) in addition to the 700 deployed; the treaty also gives the parties the right to conduct inspections at ICBM bases, submarine bases and air bases to monitor compliance with the treaty one after the other.
The treaty prohibits the deployment of strategic offensive weapons outside the national territory, but it allows the passage of submarines and the flight of strategic aircraft in accordance with the general rules of international law (for example, submarines are authorized to entering neutral waters). At the time of the conclusion of the treaty, Russia had 611 deployed units, it could legitimately increase their number to 700.
What will happen next
On the evening of February 21, after Vladimir Putin’s speech to the Federal Assembly, the Russian Foreign Ministry gave a more detailed description of what the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START treaty means. First, Russia will continue to observe quantitative restrictions on strategic offensive arms “in order to maintain a sufficient degree of predictability and stability in the nuclear and missile field” until the end of the treaty’s life cycle, that is, until 2026. Also, Moscow will not stop participating in the exchange of notifications with the American side on the launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missiles launched from submarines.
Another feature of the decision to suspend participation in START is its reversibility in the event that Washington shows political will and makes efforts to defuse and create the conditions “for the resumption of the full functioning of the treaty”, underlined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs. “Until then, none of our approaches to Washington under START are absolutely ruled out,” the Foreign Office noted.
The confrontation fomented by Washington and its policy of “maliciously escalating the conflict in Ukraine” have created a fundamentally different security environment for Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry lamented, explaining the decision to suspend participation in the agreement. So if the United States allocate global nuclear security as a separate topic for negotiations with Russia, regardless of “what is happening in the world”, Moscow perceives START in conjunction with other security-related issues, including the topic of hostilities in Ukraine .
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly clarified that the nuclear factor is directly related to what is happening on the fronts of Ukrainian society, Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, said in an interview with RTVI . “The withdrawal from the treaty or its suspension, the allusion to the possibility of resuming nuclear tests under certain conditions, aim to demonstrate: “If you think that we are bluffing exclusively with the nuclear factor, then in vain”, explains the expert.
Vladimir Putin’s declaration does not mean the suspension of Russia’s participation in START, but its de facto end, Lukyanov believes. “We have already gone through the so-called “suspensions”, this [прекращение] irreversible,” the expert said. In his opinion, the very model of the treaty is changing, and now the Russian side declared on the need to take into account the nuclear arsenals not only of the United States, but also of Great Britain and France. “This also means that in future everyone will determine for themselves how much they need, there are no more ceilings. This can mean an increase or a decrease [ядерного] potential, but, of course, rather under construction. In general, it is a refusal of restrictions and a transition to an independent policy,” he summed up.
The “termination” of START means, first of all, the suspension of access of American inspectors to Russian ICBM bases and bases for the deployment of strategic aircraft and submarines (mutual inspections to monitor compliance of START are foreseen by Article XI of the treaty), director of the Center for In-Depth European and International Studies at the National Research University’s Higher School of Economics, Vasily Kashin told RTVI. “However, in the absence of inspections, the ability to conduct inspections on compliance with quantitative restrictions will be lost,” he said.
However, Russia should not be expected to boost its nuclear potential by circumventing treaty restrictions, Kashin said. “Russia will use the suspended status of the treaty as a means of pressure on the United States, because it is more important for Washington than for Moscow. But in the end, such pressure attempts can lead to the fact that the Americans themselves destroy the treaty, ”summarized the expert.
START or START III is one of the few agreements between Russia and the United States still in force in the field of limiting the accumulation of nuclear weapons. In addition to the agreements on the limitation of strategic offensive arms, the USSR and the United States were able to conclude two other major agreements: on the limitation of anti-missile defense systems (ABM treaty) and on the elimination of intermediate-range missiles and shorter (INF Treaty).
The ABM Treaty signed in 1972 prohibits the deployment of new strategic air defense systems and limits the possibility of deploying missile defense to two areas: around the capital and nuclear weapon bases. Such a restriction was necessary to halt the growth of the first-strike threat. No missile defense can stop all missiles, so the side with the most missile defense had an incentive to strike first to disable the maximum number of enemy missiles and increase its defenses. The side with the less developed missile defense, on the contrary, did not feel safe, which also increased the risk of a first strike in order to increase its chances of surviving a nuclear war. In the context of the development of nuclear or missile technologies in third countries (for example, the emergence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and the development of ballistic missiles in Iraq), the United States considered that the treaty was not more in the interest of safety. In 2001, Washington announced its withdrawal from the treaty. The INF Treaty (signed in 1987) obliged the USSR and the USA to destroy all ground-based ballistic and cruise missile complexes of medium (1000-5500 km) and shorter (500-1000 km) ranges and prohibited their use. These missiles were dangerous due to their accuracy due to the emergence of new systems for guiding missiles to targets. The United States began to develop theories of “limited nuclear war” by a rapid precision strike on enemy leaders before a decision was made to retaliate. The USSR, in turn, with the help of such missiles could quickly destroy the NATO command and military facilities in Europe.
In 2017, Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty due to “non-compliance with its terms by the Russian side” and concerns about China, which is not limited in the creation and deployment of such missiles. In February 2019, the United States began the process of withdrawing from the INF Treaty, and in August of the same year the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the termination of the treaty.
