Russia rejects any talks with Washington as long as the United States supports Ukraine

Sergey Lavrov said:niet” Certainly, the Russian Foreign Minister did not completely close the door to future negotiations on nuclear energy between Moscow and Washington, but by setting the conditions that they are in fact postponed. sign die. “We do not rule out this idea for the future, but we condition this possibility on the abandonment by the West of its policy aimed at devaluing and disrespecting Russia’s interests.», this Thursday, January 18, announced the head of Russian diplomacy during his annual press conference in Moscow. And Lavrov translated: “We do not see the slightest interest from the United States or NATO in resolving the Ukrainian conflict and listening to Russia’s concerns.“

Simple, Moscow’s message is more akin to another form of nuclear deterrence than traditional maneuvers of strategic forces and pronouncements on Russian doctrine: There will be no discussion of nuclear power with Washington until a solution acceptable to Russia is found in Ukraine. Yet, by linking Ukraine and nuclear power in this way, when no prospect of an end to the war is on the horizon, Moscow is burying itself. real Any serious discussion on the theme ofStrategic stabilityAt least with Washington in the near future. “We should take Russia at its word. They refuse to engage bilaterally on these issues“,” said Pranay Waddi, director of arms control at the White House Security Council, as quoted by Reuters.

A new beginning, a pillar of arms control

The stakes in these negotiations are not small: Entered into force in 2011 when Sergei Lavrov was already foreign minister, the Russian-American New Start Treaty, a key pillar of strategic arms control between the two former Cold War giants, officially expires in 2026. It’s actually already brain dead: it was initially supposed to expire in 2021 and was extended at the last minute for just five years, two days before the scheduled date. That was early in the tenure of Joe Biden, who has been more open to bipartisan discussions than his predecessor Donald Trump, now the favorite of the Republican camp for the 2024 presidential election. But after the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, the war in Ukraine has passed. One year after the start of the conflict, on February 21, 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia “suspend» His participation in New Start. Formally, it is not a funeral, but, in fact, a valuable bilateral convention between the United States and Russia is almost obsolete.

An heir to the old SALT, START, and SORT treaties of the Cold War, New START was nevertheless very useful for stability between Moscow and Washington on nuclear matters. For the two states parties to the convention, the text limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 each and added several ceilings for their launches: intercontinental ballistic missiles; nuclear ballistic missile submarines and their missiles; Strategic bombers. Since 2011, the format of deterrence in the United States and Russia has remained stable. Without a New Start, nothing will stop the two nuclear superpowers from resuming the arms race. New Start not only sets quantitative limits, but also authorizes mutual inspections of Russian and American arsenals as well as exchange of information regarding the latter. The idea is to clear the fog in this area and avoid as much as possible any accidents linked to misperception of the opponent’s capabilities. From the end of February 2023, all these are guaranteed “suspend» Failed to bury.

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For Moscow and Washington, the countdown is on: on February 5, 2026, just two years from now, the new beginning will surely end. The whole question remains whether, by then, the Russians and Americans will be able to negotiate, sign, and ratify a new bilateral strategic arms reduction treaty that would succeed it. But no one can predict the future of the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for almost two years. In its war communications, Moscow specifically accuses the West of supplying the Ukrainians with long-range weapons that they would use to attack Russian territory, thereby creating a pretext for Russia to directly undermine Ukraine’s defenses. But behind these elements of language that have barely changed since 2022, based on the weapons delivered to Kiev, appears another, more murky reality: Moscow has not achieved its war goals and, at this stage, is unwilling to negotiate.

Another big question regarding future Russian-American negotiations around nuclear power is electoral. Because, while it’s easy to predict that Vladimir Putin will be re-elected to the Kremlin in March, there’s no telling who will take up residence in the White House following the presidential election next November. During his tenure, from 2016 to 2020, Donald Trump expressed a staunch rejection of all bilateral or multilateral treaties legally binding the United States with other states. So the uncertainty is absolute. “I think the Russians will want to return to the table at some point, and ideally before the finish, but Russia can also be unpredictable.“, cautiously argues Pranay Waddi, who believes that Lavrov’s statements “Cast doubt on Moscow’s willingness to engage in dialogue or return to compliance on New Start follow-up“

Nuclear modernization

For twenty years, before the war in Ukraine, Russia engaged in several programs to renew and modernize its strategic nuclear forces, such as its new Sarmat intercontinental missile (still under test), its new sub-nuclear nuclear submarine the sack (seven already in service) and restarted production of their Bulava missiles, and Tupolev Tu-160 supersonic bombers. Above all, Moscow has added to its strategic nuclear arsenal not supplied by New Start, such as the Avangard hypersonic glider or the Poseidon nuclear torpedo. The United States is also engaged in a modernization program, still marked by some unknowns: whether the B-21 bomber and submarine projects Colombia Launched, the fate of the Minuteman intercontinental missiles is still undecided and debate continues across the Atlantic.

The possible death in 2026 of the New Start treaty, already dead, is therefore not predictable, especially since all other major Russian-American treaties have also been buried for twenty years as a result of the Cold War. This was for example the case in 2002 of the ABM Treaty, which regulated anti-missile defense since 1972, and in 2018 of the INF Treaty, which banned all land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km. In 2020, a multilateral convention, the Open Skies Treaty, collapsed. In parallel with this collapse of the arms control framework resulting from the Cold War, there is growing concern over China, which is not bound by any treaty with Washington and which has been experiencing an unprecedented nuclear arms race for five years, which partly explains the United States’ major Russian-U.S. Will withdraw from bilateral treaties. there”Strategic stability» So not for tomorrow.