The United States and its allies, including Britain and the European Union, closed their airspace to Russian planes as part of a barrage of sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its decision to send its armed forces into Ukraine in February. On August 8th, the Russian foreign ministry announced that, in response to these travel restrictions, facilities in the nuclear weapons sites subject to inspections under the New START Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms will be exempt from such inspections.

The Moscow foreign ministry stated that, with such sanctions, the inspection conditions under the treaty create “unilateral advantages for the United States” in that the travel restrictions “effectively deprive the Russian Federation of the right to conduct inspections on American territory.” Russia said it remains fully committed to complying with all the provisions of the treaty but that Moscow has simply been “forced to resort to this measure as a result of Washington’s persistent desire to implicitly achieve a restart of inspections on conditions that do not take into account existing realities.” The ministry statement emphasized that the exemptions would be immediately revoked in the case of a “resolution of the existing problems and issues regarding the resumption of inspection activities under the treaty.”

On August 1st, U.S. President Joe Biden said that his administration was ready to “expeditiously” negotiate a framework to replace the New START Treaty, which is due to expire in 2026, if Moscow demonstrated its willingness to resume work on nuclear arms control. However, Russia’s mission to the United Nations claimed that Washington had withdrawn from separate talks with Moscow on strategic stability over the Ukraine conflict and needed to decide what it wanted.

The United States would highly benefit from a new strategy to deter Russian actions in Ukraine. With Washington’s sanctions on Moscow preventing Russia from conducting proper inspections and upholding their expectations outlined in the New START treaty, the U.S. is inhibiting necessary non-proliferation actions with years of precedent. In light of the conflict in Ukraine, it is imperative that Russian non-proliferation continues. If inspections aren’t maintained to the pre-established degree, it creates a space for the arms situation in Russia to worsen, despite Moscow’s claims that it would continue to comply. 

The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I, was signed in 1991 between the U.S. and the USSR and took effect in 1994. The New START Treaty is the remaining arms reduction pact that was signed in 2010 between former U.S. President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. It limits the number of nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments that can be deployed by both Moscow and Washington.

The United States needs to rethink its operations regarding sanctions on Russia. Although U.S. sanctions may have the appearance of denouncing the Russian regime’s actions in Ukraine, the reality may be the opposite. The U.S. is inadvertently enabling the potential exacerbation of arms in Russia and infringing upon a pre-established agreement with over a decade of precedent. If any solution is to be sought, the United States must uphold its nonproliferation treaty with Russia and actively work toward creating an updated and improved agreement.