According to a Reuters report from the Russian newspaper Kommersant on Tuesday, Russia and the United States are preparing to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the resumption of inspections of nuclear weapons facilities for the first time since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
It is reported that the talks might take place in the Middle East, claiming that Moscow no longer saw Switzerland, the traditional venue, as sufficiently neutral after it imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.
This comes after the 2019 collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty left New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START treaty) expiring in 2021, as the only major surviving US-Russia arms control agreement. According to the terms of the treaty, both sides are limited to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 total ICBMs/SLBMs/bombers.
In August, the Russian foreign ministry said that facilities subject to inspections under the bilateral agreement would be temporarily exempt from inspections.
According to sources familiar with the discussion, the talks between the two sides on strategic stability have been frozen since Russia began its military campaign in February. However, the world’s two main nuclear powers agreed to extend the New START treaty on nuclear arms reduction to stay in effect until 2026, as they negotiate new terms of the replacement agreement.
