Overview
- Russia says treaty obligations no longer apply and signals readiness for talks, asserting the U.S. ignored Vladimir Putin’s offer to observe limits for one more year.
- President Trump rejects maintaining New START caps and calls for a new, modernized agreement that brings in China, a position reinforced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
- UN Secretary‑General António Guterres calls the lapse a grave moment for global security and urges immediate negotiations to restore verifiable constraints.
- With inspections and data exchanges halted since 2023, any informal limits are unverifiable as the former ceiling of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads per side falls away.
- Reports cite last‑minute contacts in Abu Dhabi, and the U.S. military says high‑level channels with Russia were re‑established, while China deems the expiry regrettable but declines to join a trilateral pact.