Putin’s Nuclear Offer: How to Navigate a New START Extension

John Drennan is the Robert A. Belfer International Affairs Fellow in European Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. Erin D. Dumbacher is the Stanton Nuclear Security Senior Fellow at CFR.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been reminding the United States of his powerful nuclear arsenal in recent weeks. He announced successful tests of novel nuclear delivery systems and proposed an extension to New START—the bilateral strategic nuclear arms treaty that limits the size of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals—for one year.

Putin maintains that an extension would help to “avoid provoking a further arms race” and “ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint” in the bilateral relationship. So far, Trump has said that an extension “sounds like a good idea,” though the White House does not appear to have a clarified position yet. If the United States and Russia take no action, the final strategic arms limitation treaty will expire on February 5, 2026. 

Critics of a New START extension are right to argue that the deal is already on life support. Still, it is in the United States’ best interest to accept the Russian offer if Russia agrees to a follow-on negotiation process, at least a partial return to New START’s verification regime, and to reaffirm the treaty’s non-interference commitment. These steps would help reduce uncertainty in the bilateral relationship and avoid unclear, potentially dangerous nuclear signaling between Presidents Putin and Trump.

If negotiations continue and the Kremlin seeks to link bilateral nuclear arms control to U.S. and European support for Ukraine, however, then Trump should not take the bait. An unverifiable, one-year extension is not a substitute for peace in Europe.

American Interests

Trump has shown an interest in nuclear issues. The president has said that New START is “not an agreement you want expiring. When you take off nuclear restrictions, that’s a big problem.” He has also recently called for a return to nuclear testing, although neither the United States nor Russia has conducted large-scale explosive testing since the 1990s.

It’s a precarious situation, but extending New START’s central limits without a verification system that leads to a greater exchange between Washington and Moscow is insufficient, given developments affecting both sides’ arsenals since the treaty was originally signed in April 2010. Nuclear arsenals undergo few changes in one year. Accepting Putin’s offer of a bonus year of New START is only worthwhile if it provides an avenue for deeper, ongoing dialogue that could result in a timelier and more appropriate standard for both U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons.

The unique, intrusive verification regime associated with New START continued from the treaty’s ratification in 2011 until they were paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia later suspended its participation in the treaty at the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, continuing to only abide by its central limits while refusing to restart its verification measures. The mutual inspections required by those measures helped confirm for both sides that neither was expanding their nuclear arsenals beyond the 1,550 deployed warheads the treaty allows. The layered, multi-method process featured eighteen on-site inspections per year, several types of data exchanges, launch notifications, and an agreement not to interfere with each other’s National Technical Means of verification via tools like satellite photos or sensors.

As part of the verification regime, the treaty also established a Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), effectively requiring the Russians and Americans to meet twice per year to discuss any compliance and implementation-related issues. It is this structure that allows for discussions and debates on any novel issues. Both countries can use the BCC to discuss controversial capabilities and new technologies such as Russia’s Poseidon uncrewed underwater nuclear delivery vehicle or even the United States’ planned Golden Dome missile defense system. Restarting any of these verification methods would be worthwhile for stability in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Bilateral Limits

Ultimately, the one-year extension proposed by Putin is, at best, a temporary fix, which means policymakers need to take a longer view. The BCC and standards of the treaty can tee up a follow-on agreement that addresses several critical issues that have emerged since New START was negotiated fifteen years ago. This includes new Russian delivery systems and issues beyond strategic offensive nuclear weapons, such as “battlefield” nuclear weapons, systems that used to be covered by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, missile defense, or hypersonic weapons. Although a potential follow-on treaty is unlikely to address both sides’ concerns about all of these issues, this growing list demonstrates the complexity and growth of the strategic capabilities at issue in the relationship today.

The United States is still complying with New START’s guardrails, even while contemplating a response to the rapid expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. In fact, only a few changes to U.S. nuclear capabilities, such as converting some of the missile tubes on Ohio-class submarines, previously closed to align with New START requirements, could be put into effect in a one-year period. The expansive project to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal—costing roughly $1 trillion over the next ten years—would be largely unchanged if the United States agreed to keep New START in place, as is, for another year. 

Moscow has said it is adhering to New START’s central limits, arguing that a continuation of the unverifiable status quo is sufficient. Previous Russian cheating, according to the U.S. government, was the cause of the breakdowns of other arms control regimes like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Although arms control can be a useful tool for managing uncertainty, a wink and a “just trust us” will not be sufficient to meet U.S. objectives to deter not only Russia but also China in the medium term.

That is why there is little reason to accept the Russian proposal to extend without a counteroffer that elicits real concessions. The Trump administration should demand a return to those aspects of the verification regime that are possible in the short term, such as data exchanges and a continuation of the non-interference aspect of the agreement. These help prevent attacks against one another's nuclear command, control, and early warning apparatus. Once that is established, the administration should insist on a return to the BCC format with an agreed-upon schedule of meetings as the two sides consider what a potential follow-on treaty could look like. 

Sever the Link? A Relationship on Life Support

If the United States and its allies and partners are protecting their best interests—this includes Ukraine’s goals of averting a devastating occupation in a Yalta-like forfeiture of independence—then any Russian offers have to be met with skepticism. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, the United States wants to see a settlement to the war in a way that guarantees Ukraine’s security now and prevents war from breaking out again. Central to this settlement will be ensuring Ukraine emerges from the war as a sovereign, viable state able to deter future threats.

Yet, over the past nine months, the Trump administration has attempted, with almost no success, to bring Russia to the negotiating table for substantive ceasefire discussions as a step toward peace in Ukraine. Russia has responded by showing up for the photo op but demonstrating little in the way of progress. At best, Russia has implemented a thirty-day energy infrastructure ceasefire and a thirty-hour Easter truce, which both Ukraine and Russia maintain the other has violated.

Russia has also continued to push for major territorial concessions from Ukraine and insisted that it must have a veto over Ukraine’s postwar security. At the same time, it has ramped up conventional and gray-zone provocations against the United States’ allies in Europe, including via drones violating Polish airspace, by potentially trying to send a provocative signal on the Estonian border, and possibly by using its shadow fleet to launch drones to disrupt civilian air traffic in several countries. Putin seems to be testing the allied response not only in Ukraine, but also on the NATO border itself. That border, of course, is defended in part by the threat that the United States would use its nuclear arsenal to defend it. 

If Russia raises nuclear issues as a bargaining chip in discussions, the United States should insist on isolating nuclear arms control from the fate of Ukraine. Despite Trump’s unpredictable approach to Ukraine policy—which has swung wildly between seeking to arm Ukraine to the teeth and demanding that Kyiv capitulate to Moscow’s demands —his basic goal seems to be to seek peace as the war enters its fourth year. How the administration defines this peace matters a great deal to the United States, Ukraine, and Europe. 

The world has watched as the Trump administration has tried to secure a ceasefire en route to a full peace deal, but Russia has demonstrated repeatedly that it is unwilling to seriously negotiate a broader settlement to the war that does not match its maximalist demands. While a continuation of New START could inject some stability into the bilateral relationship, the United States should not trade Ukraine’s independence for unverified Russian promises about its nuclear weapons.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the authors. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.