A senior US official on Friday criticized the last nuclear treaty between Russia and the United States for failing to include Beijing, speaking at the United Nations a day after the New Start deal expired. Campaigners have warned that the expiry, which ended decades of restrictions on how many warheads Russia and the United States deploy, could encourage China to expand its own arsenal. The New Start treaty ended at the turn of the calendar on February 5, after Trump did not follow up on Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend warhead limits in the agreement for one year. Russia and the United States together control more than 80% of the world’s nuclear warheads, but arms agreements have been withering away. New Start, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads -- a reduction of nearly 30% from the previous limit set in 2002.

Source: Dhaka Tribune February 06, 2026 10:48 UTC