Russia said Wednesday it was "no longer bound" by limits on the number of nuclear warheads it could deploy, as its last arms control treaty with the United States looked set to expire.
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
Campaigners have warned the treaty's demise could unleash a new arms race between the world's top nuclear powers, and encourage China to expand its arsenal.
"We assume that the parties to the New START treaty are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations within the context of the treaty," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The Russian Federation intends to act responsibly and prudently," it added, but warned it was ready to take "decisive" countermeasures if its national security was threatened.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered in September to keep abiding by the warhead limits in the treaty for a year, but he received no formal response from Washington, the Kremlin says.
US President Donald Trump said at the time it sounded "like a good idea" but there were no subsequent negotiations.
A Kremlin aide said earlier that Moscow was "open" to dialogue on the issue.
- US wants to include China -
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asked about the end of New START, appeared in no hurry to extend it, saying only that Trump would address the issue later.
"The president's been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it's impossible to do something that doesn't include China, because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile," Rubio said.
China's nuclear arsenal is growing quickly but is still well below the levels of Russia and the United States.
Trump in his first term also looked ready to let New START lapse as he insisted on including China.
Joe Biden agreed with Russia to extend New START for five years after he defeated Trump in the 2020 election, but tensions between the two countries later deteriorated over Moscow's offensive in Ukraine.
The treaty, signed in 2010 by then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama, limited each side's nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to carry out on-site inspections of the other's nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
Russia froze its participation in the agreement in 2023, but said it was continuing to voluntarily adhere to the warhead limits.
- Appeal from pope -
Pope Leo XIV said Wednesday that each side needed to do "everything possible" to avert a new arms race.
"I urge you not to abandon this instrument without seeking to ensure that it is followed up in a concrete and effective manner," the American-born pope said at his weekly general audience.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called on Russia and the United States to commit to honour the New START limits while a new agreement was negotiated.
"Without New START, there is a real danger the new arms race will accelerate between the US and Russia -- more warheads, more delivery systems, more exercises -- and other nuclear-armed states will feel pressure to keep up," said Melissa Parke, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last month set its flagship "Doomsday Clock" closer than ever to midnight amid fears the agreement's expiry could start an arms race.
- Germany blames Russia -
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world's nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
In 2019, the two countries withdrew from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which limited the use of medium-range missiles.
In 2023, Putin signed a law revoking Russia's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, although Moscow said it would stick to the moratorium on atomic testing.
The Russian leader in 2024 signed a decree lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons.
Trump in October ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing to equal China and Russia, although he has not followed through.
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