Politics

US reveals nuclear arsenal data to prompt Russia to return to New START

Washington, May 15 (EFE).- The United States on Tuesday published data on the nuclear warheads it has deployed, urging Russia to do the same and return to the bilateral New START Treaty, which limits the two countries’ nuclear arsenals.

In a statement, the government of President Joe Biden said that was publishing the figures “in the interest of transparency and the US commitment to responsible nuclear conduct.”

Between them, the US and Russia hold nearly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

New START — the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US — limits the number of long-range nuclear weapons that the US and Russia can deploy to up to 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers, as well as 1,550 nuclear warheads in the aforementioned categories, and 800 launchers.

The statement said that Washington has 662 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers, 1,419 warheads and 800 launchers.

The US reproached Russia for not having complied with its obligation to reveal its arsenal since its “unilateral and unjustified purported suspension of the Treaty” three months ago.

“The United States calls on the Russian Federation to return to full compliance with the New START Treaty and all the stabilizing transparency and verification measures contained within it,” the State Department said in the statement.

On Feb. 21 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of his country’s compliance with New START, although he said that Russia is not withdrawing from the pact, but suspending it because of the hostile attitude of Washington, which supports Kyiv in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The treaty, signed in Prague in 2010 by then-US and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, was extended under Biden in 2021 for five more years. EFE

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