Putin’s nuclear offer to Trump: Arms control, and perhaps China too?

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Russia, the US and China are all undertaking major modernisations of their nuclear arsenals.

PHOTO: REUTERS

MOSCOW - US President Donald Trump said that he had discussed nuclear arms control with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit in Alaska - and that China should be involved too - with the ultimate aim of “denuclearisation”.

What has Mr Putin offered Mr Trump on nuclear weapons, and what might he offer?

Just a day before his meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Putin suggested that Moscow and Washington could reach a deal on nuclear arms control.

Russia, the United States and China are all undertaking major modernisations of their nuclear arsenals just as the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty - signed in an attempt to reduce the risk of nuclear war - is poised to expire.

Russia has about 4,300 stockpiled and deployed nuclear warheads and the United States has about 3,700, a total of about 87 per cent of the world’s total inventory, according to research by the Federation of American Scientists.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them, is due to run out on Feb 5, 2026.

The United States blames Russia for the collapse of Cold War agreements such as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The United