The United States revealed Thursday that it would enact new measures in response to Russia's formally exiting the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty earlier this year.
While Russia officially left the treaty in February, it began violating it in November. The country has committed itself to select aspects of the deal since, yet continuing to withhold critical data on its nuclear stockpile.
"The United States notified Russia of the countermeasures in advance and conveyed the United States' desire and readiness to reverse the countermeasures and fully implement the treaty if Russia returns to compliance," stated U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"The United States remains ready to work constructively with Russia on resuming implementation of the New START treaty," he added.
Joint inspections between U.S. and Russian scientists on each country's nuclear sites halted at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia has refused to resume them.
Now, the U.S. is revoking the visas of those Russian treaty inspectors and pledging to withhold "telemetric information" on launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Washington also says it will stop updating Russia on the status of missiles, launchers, and other items required under the treaty.
But the U.S. will still provide Russia with less-detailed notifications of intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine-launched ballistic missile launches, as well as other exercises, under two other agreements between the countries from the late 1980s.
Still, Russia and the U.S. have both announced their intentions to remain committed to New START's limits on nuclear weapons and other strategic offensive arms until at least 2026.
"We're also open to limits post-2026," one anonymous senior U.S. official said, per The Hill. "But the post-2026 framework and the types of limits are kind of an open question."
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