President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend Russian cooperation with the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty, further escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow.
Putin made this known in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, when he railed against the West.
A day later, Biden was asked for his response just before a meeting with Eastern European allies in Warsaw.
“Big mistake,” was his curt reply.
Vladimir Putin signaled an end to formal arms control between the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers when he announced on Tuesday that he would suspend Russia’s participation in the New Start Treaty
Biden condemned Putin’s New START treaty announcement before sitting down with leaders of the Nine Nations of Bucharest, a group of countries that make up NATO’s eastern flank
Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world – inherited from the Soviet Union – and until the COVID pandemic was subject to constant inspection and scrutiny from the US, whose arsenal is a close second.
Monitoring was part of the New START treaty, signed in 2010 and valid until 2026.
It limits Moscow and Washington to deploying a maximum of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and no more than 700 long-range missiles and bombers.
But the deal was already in trouble. Last month, American officials accused Moscow of violating the deal by refusing to allow inspections.
They said privately they expected Russia to announce it was giving up the treaty, but didn’t expect that decision to come so soon.
In an address to lawmakers, Putin said Russia is withdrawing over US support for Ukraine.
William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Portal: “Both sides could immediately go from 1,550 deployed strategic warheads to 4,000 – that could happen overnight.”
Security analysts have also said it could end mutual deterrence and allow other superpowers like China, India and Pakistan to develop their own arsenals.
Biden will be received by Polish President Andrzej Duda and Slovak President Zuzana Caputova at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw on Wednesday
At the end of Tuesday’s speech, in which he blamed the West and global “elites” for the war against Ukraine, he made it clear that he would block the United States from inspecting sites containing some of the country’s 5,977 warheads accommodate Kremlin
Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the Armed Services Committee, said it was “no surprise” that Putin suspended attendance and called for a response.
He said the US should deploy additional nuclear forces and speed up planning in case Putin breaches the ceilings.
Marshall Billingslea, Donald Trump’s undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs, told that Russia and China will now deploy more warheads.
“President Biden needs a strong but measured response that includes support for the accelerated deployment of a nuclear-tipped submarine-launched cruise missile and the acquisition of additional B-21 bombers and Columbia submarines,” he added.
Both countries, which have 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, have so far complied with the terms of the treaty by respecting the cap on the number of deployed warheads.
Russia launched a hypersonic missile, the Zircon, from a submarine last year and has deployed the nuclear-capable Avangard hypersonic missiles since late 2019. The Avangard can travel up to Mach 27 and change course and altitude
Biden’s comments came at the end of a four-day visit to Poland and Ukraine.
Wednesday saw talks with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a conglomeration of nations in the easternmost parts of the NATO alliance that put them on the front lines of Western defenses after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
“When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine that was tested. The whole world was facing an eternal test,” he said during an address at Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Tuesday night, the anniversary of the invasion.
“Europe has been tested. America was tested. NATO was tested. All democracies have been put to the test.’