RUSSIA READY TO FREEZE WARHEADS TOTAL TO PRESERVE PACT WITH US

Russia said it would be ready to freeze its total number of nuclear warheads if the United States did the same in order to extend their New START nuclear agreement by a year, Maxim Rodionov reported for Reuters.

The New START accord was signed in 2010 and is due to expire in February. It is the last treaty limiting the two countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

The US last week rejected a Russian proposal to unconditionally extend the pact for one year, saying that any such proposal that did not envisage freezing all nuclear warheads was a “non-starter.”

Earlier, US President Donald Trump scuttled another nuclear accord with Russia that prevented the deployment of long-range nuclear missiles, giving Moscow the pretext to improve on its arsenal and work on improving its existing weapons systems, particularly hypersonic missiles.