- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the lapse of the New START nuclear treaty has left the world in an extremely dangerous situation.
- Moscow says Washington never answered its offer to keep honoring the treaty’s warhead limit for another year.
- Trump says he is open to discussing denuclearization with Putin and Xi at next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China.
- Russia wants British and French arsenals included in any talks as Macron moves to expand France’s nuclear stockpile.
- The Pentagon is reportedly drafting a strategy that leans more heavily on shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons.
The world’s three largest nuclear powers are circling a bargaining table that doesn’t exist yet, but the stakes couldn’t be higher. With the New START treaty now expired and no replacement in sight, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Tuesday that humanity is navigating “extremely dangerous” waters without a legal framework limiting the world’s deadliest weapons.
President Donald Trump has signaled he’s willing to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, to discuss nuclear disarmament. The question is whether anyone will actually show up ready to deal, or if this is just another round of geopolitical bluffing.
New START’s expiration leaves dangerous vacuum in arms control
When the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms treaty between Washington and Moscow expired in February without an extension, it marked the first time in more than half a century that the two nuclear superpowers operated without any agreed-upon limits. Under New START, inked in 2010 and renewed in 2021, neither side could deploy more than 1,550 strategic warheads or 700 missiles and bombers, with verification measures to ensure compliance.
Moscow says it offered to keep honoring the warhead limit for another year if Washington did the same, but never got a reply. Peskov warned Tuesday that negotiations would be complicated and drawn out and urged Washington to begin talks as soon as possible, calling the current vacuum a grave risk to global security.
Trump wants China at the table, but Xi may not want a seat
The Trump administration has long demanded that China join any new nuclear deal, and Beijing has been rapidly expanding its arsenal. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China’s warhead count rose from 410 in 2023 to about 620 by early 2026, though that still represents just 6% of the global stockpile.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump said he’s open to discussing denuclearization with Putin and Xi at the APEC summit, adding that trade would likely come up as well. “If President Xi wants to have it, I’d have it,” Trump said. The president told Newsmax last week that Beijing may be the toughest sell, since its arsenal is a fraction the size of America’s or Russia’s. China has long refused to join three-way talks, insisting the two nuclear giants cut their own stockpiles first.
Moscow wants Britain and France dealt into any nuclear hand
Russia insists that any future talks must also account for the warheads held by Britain and France, NATO’s two European nuclear powers. French President Emmanuel Macron has only raised the stakes. He unveiled a “forward deterrence” plan that could put French nukes on allied soil across Europe, and in March he declared France would stop revealing how many warheads it has, stating that “to be free, we have to be feared.” SIPRI puts France’s current stockpile at just under 300 warheads, and Macron wants more.
The Kremlin says the plan could backfire, warning it cannot “ignore an obvious buildup of the nuclear component of NATO’s joint potential.” Washington isn’t sitting still either. NBC reported in August that the Pentagon is drafting a strategy that leans more heavily on shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons, expanding the president’s menu of nuclear choices in a clash with Russia or China.
Denuclearization talk collides with a growing nuclear reality
Although Trump, Putin, and Xi may sit down to discuss denuclearization, the reality is that the United States holds about 3,700 nuclear warheads, Russia holds about 4,400, and China has roughly 620 and counting. Moscow rewrote its nuclear doctrine in 2024 to allow a nuclear response if a conventional attack poses a critical threat to Russia or its ally Belarus. The New START treaty is gone, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty collapsed in 2019, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty never even took effect.
Trump can’t sell denuclearization abroad while his own Pentagon plans for shorter-range nukes it might actually use, and if he gets his summit with Putin and Xi, he’ll need to decide which message he means.
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