UN Chief Calls on US, Russia to Seal New Nuclear Deal as New START Ends

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on the United States and Russia to urgently negotiate a new nuclear arms control agreement, warning that the expiration of the New START treaty comes at a “grave moment for international peace and security.”

The New START agreement is set to expire on Thursday, formally freeing both Moscow and Washington from key restrictions on their strategic nuclear arsenals.

“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.

He noted that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples” over the decades, helping to prevent nuclear escalation.

“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time. The risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” Guterres warned, without elaborating further.

The UN chief urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework” to replace the expiring treaty.

The United States and Russia together possess more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, but bilateral arms control agreements have steadily weakened in recent years.

First signed in 2010, the New START treaty capped each side’s deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 — nearly 30 percent lower than the previous limit set in 2002. The pact also permitted mutual on-site inspections, though these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have yet to resume.

With the treaty’s expiration, experts warn that the absence of binding limits could trigger a new nuclear arms race at a time of heightened global tensions.